Damned Spooks!
by CdnJAGScribe
Summary: Animal and the CIA do not play well together. Webb requires air support for a mission to go after Sadik Fahd and his Al Qaeda cohorts. Catherine and Harm have opted to continue the façade of marriage for her mother's sake. Catherine Gale/Harm Rabb R. Paraguay; post-Back In The Saddle: Mac and Harm have had a complete and utter falling out; their relationship is in tatters.
1. Chapter 1

"Damned Spooks!"

Author: Haruo Chikamori

E-mail: hhchikamori

Rating: M

Classification:

Spoilers: N/A

Summary: Animal and the CIA do not play well together. Webb requires air support for a mission to go after Sadik Fahd and his Al Qaeda cohorts. Catherine and Harm have opted to continue the façade of marriage for her mother's sake. Catherine Gale/Harm Rabb R. This is after Paraguay post-Back In The Saddle; Mac and Harm have had a complete and utter falling out; their relationship is in tatters. This bears NO relation to Byrhthelm's story "Giving It A Try" though I do blame him for making Catherine Gale absolutely appealing as a character in his own stories that it made me rewatch Pas De Deux several times.

DISCLAIMER: The characters Harm Rabb, Jr., Sarah "Mac" Mackenzie, Meg Austin, AJ Chegwidden, Bud Roberts, Harriet Sims-Roberts et al. belong (in concept if not name) to CBS/Bellisarius. Animal and all OC characters are the property of Heather and Hugo Chikamori. No profit is being made from this story, nor is any infringement intended.

Author's Note: DAMNED MUSES DON'T WANT TO COOPERATE!

* * *

_**JAG Headquarters, Falls Church, VA Antechamber, RADM AJ Chegwidden's office.**_

RADM Toshio "Animal" Nakamura grumbled as he walked through the swinging doors of the JAG office. Considering a phone-call from RADM Chegwidden, Animal growled ominously as he approached the antechamber of Chegwidden's command office. Looking over at Legalman 2 Coates who had braced to attention, he said. "Legalman…RADM Nakamura here to see RADM Chegwidden."

"Yes, sir!" she hastily got on the phone to the Admiral inside his office.

"Send him in, Coates…everyone else is already here."

"Thanks, Jen." Animal said firmly with an affable grin as he locked gazes with the young Legalman who looked startled that the admiral had used her first name.

Her gaze fastened on the admiral's uniform as he swivelled to walk towards the door of the Judge Advocate General's office. Who was he and where did she know him from? He had aviator's wings – Harm, that was it. He was Harm's friend from the aviation community and she'd seen him attend services at Captain (Padre) Turner's church. The door had closed behind the admiral as he went into Chegwidden's inner sanctum. If he was Harm's friend, then he'd have to be a solid, upstanding officer and a gentleman.

"He's three years older than Harm. Legalman Coates." A deep-timbred voice standing right beside her nearly caused her to jump three feet in the air.

"Sir…I didn't even know you were there." Coates turned to see a stern-faced Commander Sturgis Turner standing beside her.

"Coates…don't get involved." Sturgis cautioned her. "He's a flag officer and a highly decorated one at that." Coates felt a flash of annoyance at the un-needed reminder. She already knew that he wasn't someone who she could have any sort of relationship with, even if the fraternization regs weren't in place. But why did all the good men have to be officers in this Navy? Approaching mid-20s in a girl's life with no viable relationship in sight was somewhat of a downer to Jen Coates. Damn the Navy and their regulations – all the viable guys that met regs seemed to be lechers and all the _due to the frat-reg_ verboten guys seemed to be walking around with sleeve rings on their dress blues. Dammit! What would she have to do to land a guy that she felt was worthwhile? She smirked at the unbidden thought. Well…if I can't beat 'em…join 'em. With a renewed sense of purpose, Legalman Two Jennifer A. Coates sat down at her desk and resolved that she would ask the admiral for a recommendation to ROTC once she completed her degree in psychology. Then ROTC would be able to pay for her post-graduate Masters once she completed her requirement as an Ensign.

_**JAG Headquarters, Falls Church, VA RADM AJ Chegwidden's office**_

Animal stepped into AJ's office and looked around to see Harm and Mac standing on one side of the room; a blonde female and an unwelcome face on the other as well as SECNAV Sheffield. The spook who had risked the life of his buddy from RAG as backup for an ill-fated spook mission in Paraguay deserved a _choku-zuki (karate straight punch)_ to the throat. The rest of the occupants of that room could feel the temperature descend as Animal shot a look at Clayton Webb that spoke ill of any chances that Webb could survive a confrontation with the admiral. A suspicious look at the other two occupants he didn't know and a raised eyebrow at AJ notified AJ that he'd better cut to the point quickly.

"Tosh, good to see you." AJ said.

"OK…AJ, cut the formalities, what are those spooks doing here?" Animal growled.

"Well…they're here because they need our help." AJ didn't look impressed, when he ran his gaze across the two who had consistently insisted that they were with the State Department when he knew just exactly who the hell they worked for.

"Not enough fuck-ups at Langley?" Animal remarked acidly as he shot a lethal look at Clayton Webb. The blonde female looked kind of annoyed at that remark. Tough. "They usually take people from your office whenever there's a possibility of the operation going south. What the hell do they want with my air wing?"

"Admiral, we're chasing after Sadik Fahd. After the mess-up with the Stinger missiles in Paraguay, he has gone underground and we're having a tough time trying to locate him." SECNAV Sheffield said. "Your air wing has the combat experience to deal with Sadik's attempts to get more Stinger missiles."

"…in other words, if they lob one up, my guys have the best chance of evading fired missiles? Is that it?" Animal shot an even colder look at Webb who seemed too pleased with himself that he had come up with the stupidest idea known to man. "…and who compensates me for the loss of crew if they can't evade the Stingers."

"We want Fahd dead. Your aircrews have the best possible chance of coordinating with our guys on the ground to make sure of that. You have JDAMs and JSOWs capable of taking out Fahd from a long way away." SECNAV Sheffield insisted.

"My guys say they can't get a DECS feed off Company satellites. How the fuck are we supposed to coordinate? And laser guided range-finders to drop a LGB is going to make my guys have to drop in closer than comfort dictates – making them prime targets for the Stingers that my guys are trying to avoid." Animal snarled venomously "Who the fuck came up with this bright idea?" Oh, Animal knew all too well who came up with it and that person deserved another high-impact to the nasal ridge.

The blonde and Clayton Webb looked at each other – this wasn't going the way they were expecting it to. SECNAV Sheffield looked over at RADM Chegwidden to see if he was going to do anything about the outspokenness of the other flag officer. AJ peered back at the SECNAV without emotion and shrugged his shoulders, then uttered. "RADM Nakamura has a point. If your satellites can't coordinate with his men's electronics on their aircraft, you're sending them up blind."

"We'll figure something out." Clay insisted. "Mission parameters are subject to change."

"Not on my watch they aren't." Animal coldly replied. "And if my guys aren't safe up there, nothing doing." There was a vociferous objection from Clayton Webb, SECNAV Sheffield and the blonde, but Animal shut them down. "I'm not sending my guys up blind, secondly we go after Fahd and you want my help, we do it my way…"

"You don't know how we operate, with all due respect, admiral." Clayton Webb said.

"Webb, I've seen more of your piddly-ass missions go south than a migration of penguins. You wouldn't know how to plan a proper mission even if your rear-end was lit on fire with an acetylene torch." Animal shut the spook down with an impatient snarl. Walking over to the spook, Animal pointed at him with a threatening snarl. "That fuck-up down in Paraguay was a prime example."

"How the hell did you find that out? That mission was classified." Webb sputtered.

"Seen my rack? There's a security clearance that goes with that." Webb's eyes fastened on the admiral's rack. "Considering I'm an aviator that has to deal with black ops on occasion, you don't think my clearance allows me access to details not normally in the purview of standard military operations. And most of my contacts have told me to steer clear of your ops because nine point five times out of ten, they result in fuck-ups of the highest degree." Animal's eyes were cold as he locked them on Webb's. "You do it my way or there's the door. Walk out it! Your choice."

Harm was seriously resisting the urge to sneer in contempt at Webb. How many times he'd wanted to upbraid Webb on his stupid operations that had risked both his and Mac's lives, but he didn't have the rank to do so. Animal, his buddy, on the other hand had both rank and influence. The blonde CIA attorney with whom Harm had worked on the Angelshark investigation on the other hand was looking at Harm as if to ask _who is he? - referring to the admiral who was giving Clayton Webb the third degree. _

AJ was grinning in satisfaction as Animal was saying all the things that he had wanted to say to Clayton Webb.

"We can't…" Webb objected vociferously. "We have to take out Fahd before he somehow gets his hands on yet another bomb. He's going after an ex-Ukrainian nuclear warhead that somehow missed the count when they were returned to the Russian Federation."

"Oh, for FUCK SAKES!" Animal swore, shaking his head. "My guys aren't doing the mission." Animal snarled at Webb.

"Then who will?" Webb asked.

Animal looked over at Harm. "As of now you're TDY with me." AJ's eyes opened in shock. "Look, AJ, you've let the spooks run roughshod over you guys for years. Harm's flying with me. That way he can't be used as one of the ground guys. I'll find a RIO for you." Animal stated. "How soon were you wanting to get this operation off the ground, dumbass!?" He swivelled around to fix a warning glare at Webb who stammered…

"…three days."

"FIVE!"

"But what if Sadik moves?"

"Then you track him down; that's what your intelligence group is supposed to do, not be sitting on their damned computers playing pinochle and sipping Starbucks frappuchinos." Animal snapped. "If you're on a mission, your backup had better not be playing computer games…"

AJ uttered. "What about Rabb's commitment to completing the reviews of those Imes cases that are under judicial review?"

"Well, you have attorneys who can cover that, right? AJ? Besides if I'm correct on this Sadik Fahd…he poses a greater threat to national security than a law-school liar." Animal raised an eyebrow.

"You have a point there." AJ said reluctantly as he shot a look over at Mac. "Make sure you bring Rabb back in one piece. Colonel Mackenzie? You take over Rabb's files and apportion them out to the staff. I'm going to see if I can get in a temporary lawyer to help with the cases under review." Mac didn't seem too pleased with the turnabout of events, but she knew that Animal had hoodwinked Harm into flying for him and damned that squid would jump at the chance to fly even if it was in a Hornet.

_**JAG HQ, Falls Church, VA, Bullpen**_

"Who's that?" Harm turned around to see a rather curious set of blue eyes looking at him as the CIA Lawyer pointed at the rapidly retreating navy blues clad back of RADM Nakamura. After chewing the ear off Clayton Webb and his stupidity, he'd rounded on the SECNAV and told him that the utilization of Navy assets should have come to a halt with the fiasco in Paraguay. SECNAV Sheffield nodded that he was tendering a bill for ratification to make it illegal for the CIA to utilize any Navy assets in the field unless it was a matter of life or death. And RADM Nakamura had swore up and down that if anything went wrong with this particular mission that he would be shoving Clayton Webb's teeth down his throat. "He sure didn't seem to like us Company-types much…" she said quietly to Harm.

"That…Catherine, is my former Reserve Air Group instructor and flight leader with me on the Howlers and former commanding officer of the VF-41 Black Aces. He's now the COMNAVAIRLANT." Harm grinned at Catherine Gale who twisted her lips into a rather bemused smile. "…and yes, he's normally that grouchy. Of course, I think most of it was the fact that Clay was here."

"I see…" Catherine replied. "I think Clay's going to be smarting for a while after that…" she smirked at him. "So…I'll see you at Kresge tonight?" When she had said with a rather appealing. "Why not…" and a smile to his insane request to be a family after he'd just got fired from the CIA, he'd been absolutely surprised at Catherine's willingness to go along with this smokescreen for her mother's behalf. Of course the marriage may have been a sham and he was albeit reluctant at first though with Andrew Gale's insistence on Catherine and Harm doing this for Esther's peace of mind at what they had thought was her last moments on earth, it had turned out for the better as Esther made a remarkable recovery from critical to serious condition. Esther was a sharp-tongued, but loving mother to Catherine and Harm found himself slowly falling for his erst-while mother-in-law who'd welcomed him into the family after that health-scare of hers. She still was not entirely out of the woods, yet but well, if her continued health improvements kept Catherine happy, that's what was most important to Harm. And just as Mac was approaching the office, Catherine leaned up and gave him a kiss on the lips that made the jarhead look as though she was about to blow steam out both ears. It really helped that Harm was helping her through the pregnancy, when she had realized that the guy who had knocked her up had fled the coop. Yet Harm through his magnanimous nature had decided to take on the role of instant-father. _'I'm sure that's pissing that Marine off a lot_' Catherine thought to herself, but the absolute satisfaction of seeing the degrees of red-shaded pissed off that Marine was going through made her lean into Harm's arms a little longer than was officially called for.

"Of course, I'll be there. Think I'd pass up a chance to chat with your mother?" Harm had his devastating grin turned on her full-bore.

"Should I tell her to get her own sailor?" Catherine grinned at him.

"Maybe you should, since I only have eyes for you." Harm grinned – he was sure that Mac heard that comment and probably was breaking something in her office from the sounds of it, and leaned in to plant another kiss on Catherine's lips.

"oooh…that sounds nice." Catherine teased him. "that almost sounds like was the truth." A part of her wanted it to be, since her mother was reacting so well to the thought of the tall, handsome attorney being Catherine's husband, but the other part of her was telling her that she was living a lie. If only…he knew how much that overwhelming smile of his was doing dangerous things to her equilibrium.

"I am…Catherine…" His eyes darkened for a moment. "If you only knew…" he said softly; almost to the point of inaudibility.

"I gotta go…Harm. Clay's probably blowing up like a pufferfish downstairs waiting for me. I got a ride from him over here." Catherine stated as she made to head for the door. "I'll see you tonight…" she said huskily. "sweetheart."

"Can't wait, Cath…" Harm grinned at her as she groaned softly. Every damned time, that smile worked – her legs turned to jello.

Harm knew that he would have to work like a dog to hand the files over as Animal expected him to be at Oceana to make plans for the mission to come at 0500hrs tomorrow morning. It was going to be a late night with the trip to Kresge and then to NAS Oceana.

_**JAG HQ, Falls Church, VA, Mac's Office, 1500 hrs. **_

"Mac, here's the files that I have to hand over." Harm stated as he walked into the office laden down with a foot-high stack of files. Mac looked up at him with no small degree of animosity. "I'm at Oceana starting tomorrow for however long that this mission entails."

"So how long are you going to be playing pilot?" Mac waspishly asked. Harm looked at her with a degree of concern. She'd been snappish with him ever since he'd come back to JAG from his stint with the CIA. And then finding out, while traumatized from Sadik's tender ministrations in Paraguay, that he was married to the CIA attorney who was opposing them on the Angelshark investigation – that really made her want to explode in anger. But she was in uniform and decorum was the order of the day. "Skipping out early or couldn't this wait till secure?"

"I have to go see my mother-in-law; she's in the hospital." Harm said shortly. "Heart ailment; she almost died before I came down to Paraguay."

"Some husband you are…leave your wife to deal with her mother being ill like that."

"Yeah…" Harm bit off a stinging retort. "Yeah, I shouldn't have left her like that…" and turned on his heel, exiting her office after he left the files on the corner of her desk.

_**Kresge Medical Centre, Pimmitt Hills, VA, 1835 hrs**_

"Commander, what a surprise…" Esther Gale's surprised look of amusement caused Harm to grin at the white-haired lady sitting in the hospital bed. "Come on in…take a load off your feet." Harm looked around the room in question, "If you're wondering, Catherine is running a little late from the office." she smiled mischievously. "Commander Rabb, so when…exactly are you going to tell me that you and Catherine are just faking it for my benefit?" She raised an eyebrow. She laughed as Catherine stepped into the room just as she was asking the question and gasped.

"Why do you think we're faking it?" Harm asked curiously.

"C'mon Commander, you two don't have anything in common. While I've been recovering, I've noticed how tentative you two are around each other…as if not wanting to step on each other's toes. Or do you think that my eyes are so old that they don't see these things?" she smirked at Catherine. "…and you're probably not Catherine's baby's dad, are you?" her look turned back at Harm.

Catherine paled. "I think…I'm going to be sick…" she gasped as she got up and rushed out of the room.

"Catherine…" Harm made as if to get up out of his chair to go after Catherine, but Catherine had motioned for Harm to stay in his chair as she bolted to find a washroom.

"So…which is it. Are you planning on making a bolt for the hills…" Esther stated, as well as she could with the oxygen cannula in her nose, "or…are you planning on making an actual honest woman out of her?" She said with a mischievous grin so much like Catherine's, that it made Harm double-take at her for a moment.

Esther must have taken that the wrong way since she frowned at Harm for a long period of time. "Catherine and I are actually talking about that." He said.

"Oh?" Esther asked, the disbelief in her voice noticeable.

"We've talked about making the marriage legitimate…" he obfuscated his way through the personal minefield, however Esther was too sharp for that ploy. "…after all…she does need someone to give her a hand with the baby once she comes. Washington is a rather difficult place for a single mother no matter how much she makes."

"…no matter how much who makes?" came an arch question from the door. Catherine was back and from the look on her face, it seemed like she had heard the last part of Harm's answer to her mother's query. "Just exactly what are you talking about?"

"Well…" Harm tried to give her a _damn, I'm busted_ grin which only succeeded in getting Catherine's hackles up even more.

"Harm…" Catherine said sharply. "Can I talk to you outside for moment?"

When they were well-clear of Esther's room, she said sharply. "What the hell is going on?"

"Catherine…" Harm tried to calm her down.

"Don't _Catherine _me, Harm." She fumed, her eyes flashing angrily at Harm. "We were just playing this cover-up so that she would feel better. She's right, we don't have much in common; other than we're both lawyers. I work for a company I can't disclose, and you're working for the Navy. We don't have anything in common. Do you really think we have a chance at _happily ever after_?" her tone had gone from irate to almost pleading by the end of it.

Harm looked at her calmly weathering her outburst. "We won't know if we don't try…" he looked at Catherine. "…and goodness knows, I want to try…" There had been something in the way she had looked at him after their first kiss during the sham wedding that made him look at her in a completely different way. There was an surprise that Catherine would feel the way that she did for him.

"So if we're really going to give this an honest to god try…" She said as she leaned in to kiss him softly. "Harm…after this…we have a lot to talk about." She said implying that the talk would be after the mission that he was supposed to be going on to go after Sadik Fahd. "…and at the end of it, there may be one pissed-off Marine."

"She had her chance…" Harm grinned as he looked into Catherine's eyes and gave her a slow grin.

_Damn that squid…he doesn't know what he does to me when he grins like that…_ Catherine groaned inaudibly.

"I'll call you when I'm done the mission, but I'm going to be incommunicado…for the duration." Harm said. "I have to head out if I'm going to get down to Oceana in the morning."

"OK…Harm…" Catherine said. "I'm gonna have to go back and see my mom…a little longer. I'll tell her that you had to run so...she won't think that you bailed on me…oh…" she gasped as Harm took that moment to lean in and kiss her gently, then even more passionately as he drew her close trying to show her the depth of feeling that he had for her. She had to draw in a deep breath after he released her, jauntily tossing a salute her direction and headed out. "Fly safe…Harm…" She knew just exactly what was going down and it wasn't good and the fact that Kershaw had given Webb a full-hand in this operation was going to make it even more so. The mission was dangerous and they had no backup. She crossed her arms over her heart and softly said… "Come back to me…Harm…" her eyes began to brim with tears - she hadn't the strength to admit it out loud directly to Harm yet.. "I love you…"

To be continued.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Author's Note: **_There is no Mattie in this story; in this, Harm was called back to the Navy by the SECNAV as soon as the Navy got wind that he was cut adrift by the CIA. – And yes, I've painted Mac as an overwhelmingly self-centered bitch. Yes. I know…can you believe at one point I was a Harm/Mac Shipper?

* * *

_**Harm's Apartment , North of Union Station, Washington DC 0030hrs**_

Harm got woken up out of a sleep as a persistent knock on his door sounded. "Jeez!" he exclaimed irritatedly as he walked over to the door not even bothering with a robe. "Do you know what time it is?" he growled as he answered the door and rolled his eyes. "What do you want, Mac?" He blocked her entrance to his apartment making her stay out in the hallway.

"Looks like your wife is out late." Mac said irritatedly. "Or is it an open clause in your marriage that your wife has to be out at all hours of the night?"

"Well, Mac, you know exactly where she works, so frankly, the idea that she's out late at night when she's over at Langley looking over the mission parameters; isn't that unusual. Is there anything else you wanted to rake me over the coals for? Or can I get back to the rest I was trying to have before my 0400 wake-up and drive to Oceana. I have a mission to plan for and I don't have time to sit here flapping my gums carrying on a conversation with you." Harm gave her an irritated look. "Frankly, I think all you had to say, you said in Paraguay." Of course, this was about Mac. She didn't care that he had a gruelling three and a half hour drive to Oceana in the morning on minimal sleep and then had to plan a mission-critical flight plan for them to get over to Europe so that they could target Sadik Fahd – no, all this was about Sarah Mackenzie and what she wanted. And Harm was tired of giving her what she wanted because it was never enough.

"That's just it; Harm. You keep running away from us and you keep thinking that I can read your mind." Mac complained.

"Mac!" Harm snapped. "I have a mission to fly in three to five days to go after Sadik. I don't have time to deal with this while I'm due at Oceana at 0500hrs. And you say I keep running away from us…" he retorted bitterly. "You made it pretty damned clear, Colonel, that there was no _us_ in Paraguay. So I'm moving on…"

"With that sham wedding?" Mac shot back equally bitterly.

"Good night! Colonel. I'll see you when I get back…at the office." the door closed and the snick-snick of a deadbolt being drawn closed informed Sarah Mackenzie that there would be no continued conversation that night. Swearing softly to herself, she ushered herself out the door of Harm's apartment and headed for her car.

Harm, behind the locked door, let out a held breath as he heard the footsteps go away from his door. _Damn that Sarah Mackenzie_. What right did that sanctimonious Marine have to question his "marriage"?

_**Harm's Apartment , North of Union Station, Washington DC 0130hrs**_

Harm groaned as the alarm went off. Rapidly grabbing his flight-suit and khaki oversea's cap with his rank-insignia on it, he dressed quickly and headed out the door, after locking it, with his seabag. Dumping it into the back of his Lexus, he got in the SUV, started it and engaged drive pulling out of his parking spot along the mostly deserted and dark street. It was going to be a long drive to Naval Air Station Oceana and he was going to make the most of the empty highway to put some speed on. Just so long as he didn't get pulled over by a cop.

_**NAS Oceana, Virginia Beach, VA 0440hrs**_

It was three hours and ten minutes later at 0440 hours that Harm pulled up at NAS Oceana's gate and handed over his identification. The drive over took less time due to the sparse traffic on the highway heading down from DC; but Harm being the calculating driver that he was took his time due to fatigue and lack of sleep thanks to Colonel Mackenzie's interference.

"You're a little early this morning, sir?" the Marine corporal grinned at him.

"Well, Corporal. I've already had a three hour drive down from DC. I was told by COMNAVAIRLANT to be down here at 0500hrs. I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time to make that appointment." Harm grinned.

"Well, sir. You're cleared. Go on through, sir."

"Thanks, Corporal." And ten minutes after that, he was walking through the door of the planning room where Animal stood quietly assessing maps along with two other flight-suit garbed crew – one of whom was giving him a great big smile.

"Morning, Commander Rabb." Animal said. "This is Commander Joe "Scooter" Willis; He's my RIO or WSO in the F/A-18Fs that we'll be flying. This here is Lieutenant Commander Elizabeth "Skates" Hawkes.

Harm busted out laughing. "I know Skates. She flew backseat for me in the Raptors."

"How you doing, shyster?" Skates grinned affably, "So the Hammer/Skates show is back in the air again."

"Looks like it is, Skates." Harm assured her. "At least for this mission."

"OK, you two, we got a mission to plan so you can have your reunion later." Animal snapped.

Just then the door opened and Clayton Webb walked in, "Admiral, here's the folders on the operation and the communications channels that you need for satellite uplink." He said as he passed the folder to Animal who gave him a caustic glare.

"You'd better not be snowing me, Webb, because you know what'll happen to you if you haven't been upfront with me." He threatened, his voice ominous with implication of dire consequences – his face making absolutely certain that it was not misread as to the direness of the warning.

"You'd better not piss Animal off." Harm warned the Langley operative, a sinister smile on his face not reaching his eyes."Because the last guy who pissed him off, he tied to a JSOW and launched him from an F/A-18 Charlie. I hear they're still picking pieces of him out of the T-62 target down at the range six years later."

"You're kidding me, right?" The terrified gulp in Webb's voice was apparent as he tried to restore color to his face after the blood all drained out, nearly leaving him pale as a ghost. "Tell me you're shitting me."

"Think of poor Mac if she hears you've pissed the admiral off." Harm said ominously encroaching on Webb's private space. "They won't find enough pieces of you to cremate. In fact…" he paused with an even more evil grin on his face. "They may find just enough to cremate you…in a matchbox." Webb fled.

"OK…Hammer, you done scaring the pee out of the spook?" Animal chuckled as he looked over at Harm who managed to look innocent.

"Didn't know spooks could pee." Harm grinned back at Animal. "I thought they lost that capacity to do so when they went to the other side." A snort of laughter ensued but gradually subsided over the implication of the mission ahead. Going over the mission parameters and the transit their short-legged F/A-18Fs were going to have to cover – the mission briefing took well over four hours and major points regarding their transit over the Atlantic were covered. They would be flying with external fuel tanks which they would exhaust first, but Animal planned to keep the island to island jumps well within the 3,340km maximum range of the Super Hornets they would be flying.

"Transatlantic hop is going to be from Oceana to Gander, Newfoundland, Canada, then from Gander to Reykjavik, Iceland then from Reykjavik to RAF Lakenheath…that'll put us in the UK." Animal said as he pointed towards each segment of the transatlantic hop or hopping the pond as they referred to the transit. "That way we don't have any air-to-air refuelling putting up a tanker that's vulnerable over open ocean. We island hop all the way from North America to Europe. And we'll have another meeting when we get to Lakenheath to map out our last leg from Lakenheath to our base of operations in Saudi Arabia…the last leg we'll take on fuel via air-to-air refuelling from Nimitz which is out in the Med conducting air operations. We'll transit the north-eastern section of Egypt then put our aircraft down in Saudi Arabia at Prince Abdullah Air Base at Jeddah. From there we will ascertain where the best use of our resources will be and whether we will get any assistance from the Saudis in going after Sadik."

"…and then blow that sonofabitch to hell…" Scooter replied as he looked over at his front-seater, "It's going to be a rough one; depending on what air defenses that Al Qaeda puts up."

Animal nodded soberly as Scooter scrawled the information down on his kneeboard. "He may not have the big ones, but he's certainly got access to a lot of small shoulder-mounted surface-to-air missiles and that's the main problem." He looked over at his RIO with a dour expression noting that same expression mirrored on the face of the others. "The problem with shoulder-mounted SAMs is their lethality from the forward quarter – not as good; they're primarily used against helos and slow-moving aircraft, but the 9K34 Strela-3, or as we know it the SA-14 Gremlin, has a much better forward aspect kill ability over the SA-7 which frankly stank and I'm sure that Al-Qaeda has gotten their hands on a few of those Gremlins. It is also rumoured that they have also taken delivery of SA-17 Gimlets or otherwise known as the improved Gremlin. Don't take anything for granted, be ready to drop flares and keep your head on a swivel. If one of those tags you unseen, you're going to be at the Pearly Gates strumming a harp." That information was a cold splash of water as Harm and Skates looked at each other, worry coloring their faces. "And then to really make your day just great, the _loons from Langley_ have just informed us that that Sadik Fahd's forces have managed to get themselves a shipment of FIM-92 Stingers; I don't need to tell you just how effective the Stingers are versus jet aircraft." Animal overheard Harm telling Skates…

"I am so going to kill Webb." Animal snickered at Harm's comment.

After going through the transatlantic hop mission profile yet again, Animal told the crew to mount up – after getting kitted up, they walked out to the Oceana tarmac. Luckily for Harm he had recently been checked out on the F/A-18F Super Hornet and was able to mount up.

"Sure isn't like the Tomcat, is it, Hammer?" Skates commented dourly as she looked over at the lines of the F/A-18F.

"Nope." Harm stated, "Nothing's like the Tomcat and most of us aviators who flew her, well…it's the changing of the guard."

_**CIA HQ, Langley, VA**_

"You gave them everything, right?" Clayton Webb was accosted by Catherine Gale in the hallway as she caught up to him, her face flushed and her eyes demanding a straight-forward answer, but she wasn't going to get one, at least not from him.

"Need to know, Catherine, and you don't have a clearance high enough for that." Webb turned to look at her. "You're a lawyer, you pinch-hit for us in the courtroom. None of the operations stuff is anything that has a _need-to-know_ for you. Was it Rabb that put you up to questioning this?" Webb knew that she was seeing the naval aviator, but didn't bother disguising his contempt of the man. Ever since Webb had gotten involved with Lieutenant Colonel Sarah Mackenzie, Rabb's and his working relationship had pretty much gone sour, then with Harm being fired by Clay – the trust between the two men, as negligible as it had been, had become zero.

Catherine just said primly, "Vested personal interest…and that's _need to know_ and you don't need to know." Throwing that back in Clayton Webb's face, she fastened a gimlet stare at him, shook her head slowly and walked off. There were times when she hated that bastard. The field agents were a cagey bunch and weren't prone to talking about any operations. And _damn Clayton Webb _but he was right, she didn't need to know. All she could do was wait and pray that Harm made it home, safe. But she knew that Harm was going into danger and hated that all she could do was sit there while the Company she worked for obfuscated and bluntly put, lied their way out of responsibility for any screw-ups that could potentially happen which could potentially cost the life of the man that she hoped that she could eventually make a life with.

Sometimes, Catherine Gale, CIA attorney, thought; _it sucked being a spook_. Perhaps it would be better if she turned in her resignation and took up a private law practice for a firm. At least then she could make some decent money and she and Harm and her little one would be safe. She snorted in derision of the idealistic idea. Like Kershaw would let her just pack up and leave. Like the mob, she was in till death. And decidedly she knew too many of the Agency's secrets.

Faced with all that…her only response was to smile ruefully and place a hand on her tummy where her daughter lay curled up inside developing. And at that thought, the usually driven and career-motivated Catherine Gale smiled in a tableau of maternal tenderness. Catherine would protect her daughter with her life if it came down to it.

_**NAS Oceana, Virginia Beach, VA 0945hrs**_

It was almost 1000hrs by the time preflights and checklists were completed and the two VFA-213 Black Lions F/A-18Fs were in the air.

"Black Lion 206; Black Lion 208, on my wing." Regardless of whether he was the COMNAVAIRLANT or not, Animal didn't want to step on anyone's toes by taking 200 (the CAG's bird) or 201 (the squadron commander's bird), but needing two F Super Hornets (the two seaters), he requisitioned the lo-vis Black Lion aircraft.

Harm radioed. "Black Lion 208…copy."

Pointing their noses on a heading that would direct them over Nova Scotia enroute to Gander Newfoundland, they flew welded wing - ETA at 1140 hrs in Newfoundland, considering that they would be pressing the sound-barrier at 1111.3km/hr or 600 knots airspeed. They would refuel in Gander then proceed to Reykjavik, Iceland.

_**Gander International Airport &amp; CFB Gander, Gander, NL 1140hrs**_

The two F/A-18Fs landed one after the other at Gander, Newfoundland. That definitely caused a commotion on the Canadian airport ramp. During the refueling process which would end up taking about two to three hours, Harm, Skates, Scooter and Animal went to go sit in the cafeteria; still fully suited up, less their flight helmets and oxygen-masks. Grabbing a quick salad from concession; Harm downed it, barely suppressing a yawn as he did so – thanks to Mac he hadn't had much of a sleep and the damned transatlantic flight was going to take a lot of energy out of him. He tried to mask his fatigue but Skates noticed.

"You look like you could use a few hours in the rack. Hammer. It's surprising you're not bouncing your head off the table here." She said quietly to him when Animal and Scooter were off gazing out at the airport tarmac watching the people-haulers.

"Yeah, thanks to Mac wanting to discuss the minutiae of her love-life and why we couldn't connect…" he snorted derisively, "I didn't get much sleep…"

Skates shook her head, she knew too many people like Mac, self-centered and only wanting what she wanted and not caring about how _what she wanted_ would affect others in her social circle. Lieutenant Colonel Sarah Mackenzie, judging from what Skates had seen of her, struck her as a obsessively driven career-oriented woman, but selfish – the only thing that counted to her was the ability to be able to win competitively. Skates knew she, herself, was competitive, but that competitiveness was balanced by her ability to care for her fellow man (or woman) as the case could be. And standing outside Harm's door at just after midnight and ranting about how she was affected when she knew damned well that he had a critical mission the next day pretty much sealed the deal that Mackenzie was off her rocker.

Harm on the other hand, tried to keep from yawning. He tried to concentrate on the mission – he had to focus, he couldn't fly a high-performance jet fighter if he was yawning his head off. And they had to be in London by nightfall. As it was, it was still another eight hour hop across the Atlantic and they had only finished their first leg yet and they were still in North America.

"Look, Harm…if you can't do it, we're going to have to tell the admiral. He can delay a day while you rest up. The mission isn't so mission critical that we have to get there today."

"Look, Skates, I can do this…" Harm objected as he looked at Skates with a _drop it_ look. "I just need to make sure that I'm ready to go…when the admiral says go. We have to punch out of here in an hour and make Reykjavik – and another two hour refueling stop there, then punch through to RAF Lakenheath. I'll get my sleep there then be up bright and bushy-tailed for our flight to Jeddah."

"Yeah, well, just remember, if we have to ditch…we have a life expectancy of 15 minutes and I don't want to ditch a Superbug in the North Atlantic." Skates countered Harm's self-assessment of his abilities. "I'm your WSO…and if I have to I'm going to let the admiral know that we're going to have to extend his timetable due to the fact that your sleep was disrupted – we may overnight in Reykjavik if you look any more tired by the time we wheels-down there. Hammer, I don't need you collapsing from fatigue."

"Noted."

"Hammer, you may be my superior officer on the ground, but up there, we're a crew - so cut the bullshit. If you're too tired to hack the hop, then say so." Skates' eyes were angry. "My job up there is to keep you from digging a hole and I'm fucking well going to do it!"

"What's the problem, Skates." Animal said as he and Scooter walked up.

"Nothing…" Harm tried to insist.

"Why does that sound like a load of crap? Harm." Animal growled ominously. "How long were you up last night? And like Skates said. _Cut the bullshit!_" His voice cracked like a bullwhip. "You may outrank Skates but you don't outrank me. Are you flying fatigued? Yes or No!?" His eyes turned obsidian cold – surprising for brown eyes. "You are flying a mission fatigued…and you failed to notify me of that? I don't need you dumping an eighty million dollar aircraft in the North Atlantic. Right now we are flexible. When we get to London and I make the call in that we're wheels up – there's no turning back because we have assets in the air that we have to make the rendezvous with. You need sleep – you get it here and I'm going to insist that we do. I'll clear it with Lieutenant Colonel Randall, Wing Commander CFB Gander to tow our birds to the 9 Wing flightline. Maybe that'll scare some of them maple syrup sucking helo-pukes and show 'em what a real bird is then I'll get on the horn with Kershaw. You find us a hotel and find us someplace to get some decent eats. But you and I are going to talk about your reticence to disclosure, later…"

"Yes, sir!" Seeing the backside of Animal heading off to talk to 9 Wing Commander, RCAF; and groaned. Harm knew he was in serious shit from Animal as flying fatigued was a potential court-martial offense. But luckily he knew that he would just get a serious ass-chewing from Animal prior to their leaving for their hotel. He knew that semi-good mood of Animal's wouldn't last.

_**CFB Gander, NL; Hangar 1, 103 Sqn. Royal Canadian Air Force; 1230 hrs**_

"LOCK IT THE GODDAMNED HELL UP, MISTER!" Animal's voice reverberated from the rafters of the hangar causing RCAF maintenance techs to look up in amusement. Animal looked about as maniacal as a drill instructor at basic training – he was absolutely vibrating with pent-up rage. In fact Harmon Rabb Jr hadn't seen Animal this pissed off since Jack Keeter had damned near-pranged an F-14 at RAG. Harmon Rabb stood stock still, hands at his side, at the position of attention. Animal circled him like a predator, once, twice…three times. A trickle of sweat rolled down Harm's brow. When Animal spoke next, it was an ominously low growl. "Just what aborted thought process made you think that you could get into a goddamned eighty million dollar aircraft when you were so goddamned falling down tired that you could barely keep from bouncing your head off the table? You'd don't own that Superbug! The Department of the Navy and by extension the taxpayers allow you to borrow that Superbug. And not only that…" Animal growled. "It wasn't by your admission that you were fatigued. I found out when your Weapons Systems Officer ended up having to grill you!"

He paced back and forth for a long moment then roared "DO YOU KNOW JUST EXACTLY HOW BIG OF A PROBLEM IT WOULD BE IF YOU DITCHED AN EIGHTY MILLION DOLLAR AIRCRAFT IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC!?" Harm kept his mouth shut, this was a rhetorical question – and the answer came soon enough in a stentorian bellow. "I'LL BE WRITING ACCIDENT REPORTS AND GETTING MY ASS GRILLED BY COMNAVAIRPAC AND THE CNO TILL I'M FUCKING OLD AND GREY!" And Animal sinisterly leaned in; a maniacally crazy expression on his face. "…and you know what else holds true, Commander?" Harm gulped, shaking his head – now was not the time to be a smart-ass. "SHIT TRICKLES DOWNHILL! Which means that once you are fully rested you will be helping said Royal Canadian Air Force 103rd maintenance techs to go over our aircraft for our next leg of the journey with a FINE TOOTH COMB!" The last was yelled at full-volume directly in Harm's face. "AM I CLEAR!?"

"yes; sir…"

"I DIDN'T HEAR YOU!"

"YES…SIR!"

"I'M GOING DEAF IN MY OLD AGE! WHAT WAS THAT?!" If someone could look enraged and sarcastic at the same time – Animal was certainly doing a great job at that – and still able to yell at the same volume as before.

"SIR…YES SIR!"

"I thought so…" Animal growled, his voice ominously low. "IF you so much as try to crawl into another aircraft this exhausted, I will first write up an Article 32 for court-martial under Article 110 - hazarding an military vessel/aircraft and THEN I WILL FEED YOUR GODDAMNED ASS TO A GREENLAND SHARK! DO YOU READ ME!" The last was shouted at surprisingly a louder volume than before.

"YES SIR!" Harm trembled – This was no AJ Chegwidden verbal blast. It was ten times worse.

"DISMISSED!"

"AYE AYE SIR!" Harm about-faced and damned near fled for the accommodations provided by 103rd Squadron.

Scooter peeked out of the office and enquired. "Is it safe to come out?"

Animal grinned sarcastically. "Well…I feel better now."

_**CFB Gander, NL; Visiting Officer's Quarters, 103 Sqn. Royal Canadian Air Force; 1240 hrs**_

Skates looked over at Harm who looked like he was trembling and shaking from the grilling that Animal had just given him. "So…did you survive?" she asked.

"Yeah…it was a close call."

"He was right, you know…" Skates stated.

"Yeah, I know. What I need to do is get something in my stomach and then get some uninterrupted sleep for about 12 hours. – It's going to be an early morning…" Harm replied as his face began to regain some color and headed for the cafeteria to get some food.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Author's note: **__Bear with me. Canada's RL politicians are completely screwing up their acquisition plans. I am not a big proponent of the F-35 with all it's problems and I don't think that it's the right fighter for Canada. I'm sorry, I'm Canadian - HOCKEY, Oh Canada, poutine and all that (in that order). Yay Canada! Actually I lean towards the Eurofighter though it's expensive – two engines…etc. But the Gripen might fit the role better – Swedish, performs well in cold-weather._

* * *

_**JAG HQ, Falls Church, VA 1635hrs**_

Lieutenant Colonel Sarah Mackenzie was still irate sixteen and a half hours later. _How dare that irritating naval aviator treat her that way_? Harm's avoidance of the issues surrounding their relationship angered her. _Did she really pick a bad time to go over_? Her conscience prickled indicating the slight possibility that she should have picked a better time to confront Harm over his avoidance issues but the flash of anger that produced pretty much obliterated the idea that she was in the wrong. _Well, if that idiot hadn't continued to dodge the issue, they would have been able to solve the problem._ _What if he didn't come back? _Mac didn't want to contemplate that issue, but she hadn't wanted to leave things the way they were if perchance he wasn't able to make it back. That's why she had gone over and tried to talk things out but his snappish response and the way he had shut down had made conversation an impossibility. As usual, Mac believed that her way was the way that things should have been done without regard for the other side of the issue – which was Harm had minimal sleep and had to fly an important mission. And by her going over and disturbing what little sleep Harm had, she had placed fatigue right at the top of the risk chart.

Mac flipped over a file that her concentration barely registered. Why had she even been in the briefing room if the mission hadn't made her participation compulsory? In fact, why had she even been called by the admiral into the room? Was it just a way for the admiral to dig the knife in and make it stick? _Here's what your friend is going to be doing and just for your information, you're not going to be a part of it? _A knock at the door distracted her from what little attention she had been paying to the law file. Her door opened, then the audible click of the door as it was closed then footsteps approached her desk. "Who is it?" Mac said barely looking up from the file.

"Sarah?" she looked up to see Clay standing in front of her desk. "Now, we talk about the role that you will be playing in the mission."

"I thought I was going to be shuffling papers." Mac growled. "It didn't seem like you had any part for me to take part in."

"Well, it was a need to know…" Webb replied laconically and then relented by explaining. "The less each part of our mission knows, the less likely it is for the other to be compromised in case that something happens to one piece."

Mac snorted. "So, who's going to cover all of my case files." She said, still not looking up from her files.

Her door opened again and a blonde officer in navy blues, three full sleeve rings denoting a commander; stepped into the office. Mac was about to growl _who the hell are you? _ The blonde commander answered her question. "I'll be taking over the files." Her twang hinted of a childhood in Texas. "I was called in by the admiral to take over on the Imes case. And Commander Manetti is grabbing whatever other files there are. We'll be your substitutes for Commander Rabb and yourself while you're both away." The way the blonde commander said _Commander Rabb_ just grated on Mac and she looked up at the commander.

"Who the hell are you?" the unspoken question was now out in the open.

"Well, Lieutenant Colonel Mackenzie." Mac just about gnashed her teeth. "I'm Commander Meg Austin."…and just to stick the knife in a bit more, CDR Austin smiled, her eyes twinkling in merriment which just made Mac even more irritable. "I used to be Commander Rabb's partner before I was temporarily reassigned to a different post."

Well, that disclosure pretty much dumped Mac's day completely in the crapper. Of all the people to replace her in the office, the admiral just had to bring in HER! Mac's day absolutely sucked – to top it all off, maybe the guy who prosecuted Harm with the Lieutenant Singer murder could take up whatever slack the admiral needed picked up. That would really make her day go the way she expected the rest of it to go.

A soft knock on the door. "Lieutenant Colonel Mackenzie, Ma'am…I'm Major Jack McBurney…"

_**JAG HQ, Falls Church, VA 1645hrs**_

"So you're telling me, Clay, that we're supposed to be the eyes on the ground?!" Mac's expression was incredulous. The anger in her eyes ensured that Clay knew just how she felt about the disclosure. "We're the ones who are going to be coordinating the GPS and laser-guided bombs if it comes down to it. Talk about sticking our hands in the serpent's den!" She shook her head. "The last time I went with you, you damned near got killed and I damned near got tortured with steel-wool heated up by electricity. Do you know what the hell that Sadik will do to the both of us if he captures us again?"

Clayton Webb leaned forward to make his point clear and softly said. "Sarah, you know that we have to do this, right?" Meg and MAJ McBurney had left the office, collecting the case files that Mac had assembled before Clay had started briefing her on the mission. "The Navy isn't allowing us to use any more naval assets other than the ones we have in the air. The two Super Hornets that are going up are all we have."

"I still don't like it." Mac's voice was more subdued, but Clay could see that her rigid posture had relaxed a little; letting him know that she knew that there was no other way. There would be no SEAL teams assigned to this mission unless the President signed off on that. So the only assets they would have on the ground would be CIA and one JAG officer. "So tell me, Clay…when do we have to get going."

"We're feet on the ground within 24 hrs after the admiral…" Mac knew that Clay was referring to RADM Nakamura this time; "lets us know that they're ready…that will be within 48 hours from now."

_**CIA HQ, Langley, VA 1700hrs**_

Deputy Director Harrison Kershaw looked over at the CIA Attorney. "Webb tells me that you're not liking the mission parameters set by the Agency." His tone was flat and uncompromising setting warning bells going off in Catherine's mind.

"As Agent Webb stated, you only have enough clearance to deal with the particulars of any case that goes through legal channels. Your job is to sweep the messes under the rug through legal means before we have to resort to other means to remove the messes. What falls under your job description…" he leaned in ominously. "…is not to create messes."

"Yes, sir." Catherine stated – the threat was clear. _Don't go asking about this mission or else. _ She also knew that the Agency, unlike the military, didn't take care of their own. The hypocritical wall of stars on the Agency's wall was just a token offering to the fallen. The standard Agency rule if an agent got into trouble was that they were on their own – unprotected. The Agency would invoke plausible deniability. Harm was going into a death-trap along with the admiral with whom he had close friendship ties. And she was told by Kershaw just now that she should keep her nose out of it. All that she could do was hope and pray. She would not push it too far. But Catherine knew deep down that…

_There were some days when this job just wasn't worth it. _

Retreating to her office and picking up the files that she needed to concentrate on developing a rebuttal to – more FOIA requests for information that the CIA could not respond to; she put them in her briefcase and made ready to return home to an empty and lonely apartment.

_**Sana'a, Yemen, in a little café**_**. 1100hrs**

"You have what it is that I need." Sadik Fahd asked the arms dealer.

"Do you think that I would be carrying around a warhead in my pocket?" the Ukrainian arms dealer growled. "Do you think I'm stupid?"

"I did not ask if you were carrying it in your pocket, I asked if you have managed to find what it is that I require?" Fahd's eyes narrowed. This infidel was starting to annoy him. Too many people had found out what happened when Sadik Fahd got annoyed.

"Where shall the transfer take place?" Bohuslav Budny growled. "I do not transfer the warhead without half the money in my hands with the rest to be paid at time of transfer. For the risk, you understand." He looked over at the terrorist. It didn't matter that it was a weapon of mass destruction. For Bohuslav Budny, it was a transaction. Money was what counted."You do have the means with which to arm and detonate it?" he inquired.

"You have no need of that information." Fahd replied. "Rest assured though, the Americans will not be amused." Fahd knew that he had the technicians and the necessary knowledge base of nuclear scientists whom he had managed to recruit to his cause to fashion several nuclear suit-case bombs that he would distribute around the United States. All he required now were martyrs to the cause.

"My friend, what this money has bought you is not only a RT-2PM Topol but the MAZ-7917 launcher to go with it. But you will be required to figure out where to launch this missile from." Fadh's eyes went wide at Budny's admission. To get his hands on an honest-to-goodness, Allah be praised, nuclear missile which the capability to launch it anywhere within a radius of 10,000 km. "We will make the transfer in Port Said. I have managed to rent a cargo transport ship from Sevastopol through the Bosphorus Strait and on through the Mediterranean to Port Said. The shipment will arrive in four days. We will meet at Port Said to greet the ship's arrival."

"And how do you keep the Egyptians from throwing a major fit over nuclear weapons being transported to their country." Fadh asked.

"Well…let us just say that money talks." Budny's look was grim. "Enough money paves a path where one is not apparent." With plans made, Budny got up from his seat after the suitcase of money had been transferred to him. A slight crack of the briefcase assured him that the contents were genuine. A nod to Fahd, and Budny melted into the weqt alegheda' crowd. Fahd had much to do before they could make the

_**CFB Gander VOQ, Newfoundland, 0400hrs **_

Harm had roused himself from the bed after getting some much needed sleep. They would be wheels up at 0700hrs, which meant that he had enough time to help the 103rd Maintenance techs of the Royal Canadian Air Force to go over their aircraft in time to grab a bite to eat and be present at the morning pre-flight briefing.

Grabbing his flight-suit, he dressed quickly, socks and shoes going on next. Then making sure that his face was clean-shaven (owing to the oxygen mask he would be wearing today for at least eight hours), he made his way down to the hangar where the two Super Hornets were being looked over. Despite the punishment detail, Harm's mood was cheery and he greeted the Master Corporal and Sergeant who were in charge of the crew looking over the Super Hornets. Certainly the Super Hornet was an entirely different aircraft than the Legacy Hornet, however the Canadians were looking at replacing their CF-188A Hornets and the F-35A JSF was the candidate, however Canada needed an interim replacement and was looking to lease from Boeing sixty-five F/A-18E &amp; F Super Hornets as a stop-gap as the F-35 was running into developmental problems. Well, at least the Canucks were buying American instead of the British EF 2000 Eurofighter or the Swedish Gripen. Well, there was nothing like good ol'fashioned US Air Power, Harm thought as he looked over at his Super Hornet.

It was about 0520 when Animal wandered into the hangar, nodded tersely at Harm when he saw Harm and asked him, "You get some decent sleep yesterday? So I don't have to find a shark to feed your ass to?"

"Yes, sir. I've got a good twelve hours of sleep…and I'm ready-to-go." He grinned.

"Bright eyed and bushy-tailed, right, Rabb?" Animal snorted sarcastically. "Good – because we're going to try to make Jeddah tonight. Then I can tell that damned spook that he can suck rocks."

"Sir?" Harm looked at the grumpy admiral with a curious expression. Animal didn't elucidate any further.

"Let's get our minds on the mission." Animal shook his head and said tersely. "Briefings at oh-six hundred. We're wheels up at oh-seven." Then stalked off to Gander meteorological to obtain the updated flight weather and to file a flight plan.

_**CFB Gander tarmac, Newfoundland, 0640hrs**_

Harm and Skates walked around the F/A-18F Super Hornet while a bit farther down the flightline, Animal and Scooter were doing the same. When they were finished their exterior walk-around, they climbed the ladder provided for them and mounted up.

"Gander Tower, Black Lion 206, Departure, TransLant, Reykjavik. Take-off clearance, echelon takeoff with Black Lion 208?"

"Roger, Black Lion 206, Gander Tower, echelon take-off clearance approved, TransLant, destination Reykjavik. You are cleared to proceed onto Runway One-Three. Copy?"

"Roger, Gander Tower, this is Black Lion 206, Proceed Runway One-Three." Animal proceeded onto the runway as Harm radioed in for his take-off clearance. When his was approved, Harm trundled onto the runway and formed up beside him on the starboard side of the center line and slightly aft. Looking down the runway, Animal could see some early-bird plane-watchers to the fence on his port-hand side about one-third of the way down. Animal grinned in the mirror at his WSO, Scooter. "Well, let's give these aircraft aficionados a good departure." Looking over at his starboard side where Harm was stationed with his F/A-18F, Animal lifted a thumbs-up. Harm and Skates lifted up there thumbs to indicate that they understood the departure.

The airplane photogs were there with their cameras and lenses witnessing a sight that they weren't able to see very often, two American aircraft taking off from a Canadian airport. And it seemed there were a few more as Animal eased the throttles forward, starting his take-off roll. Streaking past the observation parking lot, mid-take-off roll, Animal calculated that he'd rotate the nose up just as the two aircraft hit the six-thousand five hundred foot mark. And there was no mistake as the nose-wheel left the ground that the main-wheel mounts felt light and the Super Hornet pulled into a 20 degree climb, Harm hot on his starboard aft position. Animal grinned behind his oxygen mask and then pushed the throttle past its detents into afterburner, then cranked the nose up. Bullshit, that the scuttlebutt out there was that the F/A-18F couldn't accelerate past Mach 1 at 10,000 feet. Yeah, right… Animal missed the Tomcat, but there wasn't any way that he'd give any credence to lies about the capabilities of this fighter. The Super Hornet accelerated in the pitch up as Animal rolled the F/A-18F, spiralling up into the climb as the F/A-18F Super Hornet broken Angels 30. Pointing their noses NE towards Reykjavik, the two Super Hornets continued their journey eastward across the Atlantic Ocean.

_**NAS Keflavik, Keflavik, Iceland 1500hrs**_

Animal radioed to Harm and said that they were diverting to Keflavik from their planned stop at Reykjavik. They would be arriving on Runway One-one. At least there, they could get Navy resources, and plan ahead to their arrival at Lakenheath. And military refuelling crews would be able to get the turnaround under one and a half hours so that they could be back in the air. Three hours in the air plus three hours time difference between Gander and Keflavik meant that they'd be on the ground at 1800 hrs in Lakenheath and then a six hour flight to Jeddah with an air to air refuelling over the Aegean Sea.

Animal grinned as the wheels of their Super Hornets touched down at Keflavik. "Wonder what's on the menu…" a bite of Navy chow and a chance to hit the head before they had to strap the Super Hornet on the leg to the UK. Everybody was 100 percent, no reasons for delay this time around.

And less than an hour and a half later, they were doing preflight checks on the aircraft and heading back out to Runway One-One for take-off.

It was a three hour flight to Lakenheath which meant that their wheels would be touching ground at 1940hrs.

_**RAF Lakenheath, Lakenheath, UK 1940hrs. **_

The two F/A-18Fs circled on final approach to Runway Two Four passing over Brandon Road "Let's show those zoomies how we Navy aviators do it." Animal radioed to Harm.

"Roger that, Animal." Was Harm's reply tinged with laughter audible from Skates in Harm's backseat.

"We got a short turnaround and on to Jeddah." Animal said as they taxied into the 48th Fighter Wing ramp.

When the two F/A-18Fs popped canopy, the zoomie technical sergeant looked and said. "When did you Navy show up here?"

Animal grinned, "We got lonely for company and decided that we'd drop in for some eats and a tank of gas."

"…so which way to the officer's mess?" Harm inquired.

"Right this way, sir." The tech-sergeant said amicably. "Hope Air Force chow is up to your Navy standards, sir."

"If my stomach rebels, I'll let you know." Skates replied as they walked towards the operations building which was a bit of a walk as the ramp was rather large. Her stomach was hungry and they didn't have much to eat at Reykjavik, a quick snack of a donut at the Keflavik mess and then back up in the air. "I'm famished." She said to Harm.

"Well, we oughta be able to take care of that stomach of yours…" Harm replied.

"Are you saying I'm fat, Harm?" Harm gulped. The tone that Skates used on him was much like Catherine when Harm said something stupid. And he wasn't about to get himself skewered on a pitchfork.

An Air Force colonel walked out to meet them as the group headed out of the parking spot on the ramp that . "Colonel Jeffrey Mikolajczak, United States Air Force, Commander RAF Lakenheath. Saw your Navy Hornets land and thought I'd introduce myself. So you require fuel for the next leg of your trip?"

"Yes, Colonel Mikolajczak. Rear Admiral Toshio Nakamura, US Navy COMNAVAIRLANT." Animal assumed his admiral's demeanor as Colonel Mikolajczak braced to attention and nodded. "We'll be doing an air-to-air refueling enroute to our final base of operations, but we're going to need to be able to have enough fuel to reach our rendezvous. Can you provide us that?"

"Yes, sir. We'll do whatever we can to make sure that your birds are ready to fly. How soon were you planning on getting airborne again?"

"I'd like to get a bite to eat and have a chance to use the head…then we'll see how things go." Animal replied.

"Yes, sir. I'll let the mess know that you're requiring chow, sir and we'll make sure that you guys get something in your stomachs before gear-up." The colonel replied.

"Thank you kindly." Animal replied for the rest of the group. "Oh, and please let your refueling crews and the rest of the base understand that we have no time for zapping…and any foreign zaps on our aircraft will be returned…" Animal raised an eyebrow "…in kind."

"Yes, sir!" the colonel said noting to ensure that the orders were followed and reversed course to do so.

Animal winked at Skates who was the only one of the other three to quickly get what Animal was up to, as he walked past an F-15C Eagle and looked up at that aircraft. He could feel in the left hand breast pocket of his flight suit the triangular shape of a few COMNAVAIRLANT stickers and grinned an evil grin. Looking over at the nose-wheel door, he grinned as he lagged a few feet behind, then watching to make sure that no-one was watching, he swiftly peeled off the backing of the sticker that he pulled out of his flight-suit pocket and then ducked under the F-15C and swiftly applied the sticker on the outside of the F-15C's nose-wheel door. Then he swiftly accelerated pace and headed over to as the rest of them were walking up to the operations building. "Sorry about that. Forgot something in the aircraft, had to go back."

When the refueling and chow was done, Animal and Harm along with their WSOs made a quick getaway.

Two hours after that; an F-15C pilot walked out to 86-164 and did his walk-around check. His mind didn't register anything and he finished the walk around and got in his F-15C and took off for his low-level training mission through the Mach Loop with his wingman.

"Gator 164, Gator 086. You notice anything on your nose-wheel door during walkaround?"

"Negative, Gator 086, I saw absolutely nothing out of the ordinary."

"Maybe you need to get your eyes checked. Gator 164. Looks like you got a Navy zap on your nose wheel door." The acknowledgement was accompanied by a scathing expletive with which he got royally rounded out for by Ground Control.

_**Over the Aegean Sea 0012hrs**_

Animal grumbled to his WSO. "Do you have anything on scope regarding a tanker in the area? I don't want to have to ditch."

"Looks like we have one bearing 030 squawking 216.7." Scooter replied as he looked up from his ever-present watch on the scope.

"Roger that…" Animal replied. "Looks like we'll be able to take a drink soon enough."

The two F/A-18Fs closed in on the aerial refueling tanker.

"Texaco, Black Lion 206. Vector?"

"Roger that…Black Lion 206 you are at 210, eight miles."

"Windshield wash and a fill-up thanks…" Animal said as they closed in and managed to hook in on the probe-and-drogue. A quick fill-up later and Animal released so that Harm could have a go at it. When they were done, they quickly detached and headed towards Jeddah and their final wheels down until they could communicate with Clayton Webb to let him know that they were there.

_**Prince Abdullah Air Base, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia**_

Animal and Harm landed on Runway Three-Four Right and taxied into the Prince Abdullah Air Base Ramp. After deplaning, Animal looked over at Harm. "I gotta call that idiot back and tell them that we're here."

Pulling out his satellite phone he punched in a number and said, "Snake Pen, Vipers Grounded."

"Viper…understood." Came the reply. "What took you so long."

"Look, Snake Pen…I'm hot and tired and I want a shower and something to eat; now quit chattering and let me get off the damned phone!" Animal clicked off the phone and grinned at Harm, Skates and Scooter. "Let's go get something to eat."


	4. Chapter 4

_**Prince Abdullah Air Base, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia 0730hrs, Arabia Standard Time**_

Animal looked over at the maps outlining the area, his brow furrowing in concentration, making sure that certain landmarks were notated on the aviation maps so that they could make any attacks that they needed to without running their Super Hornets into the local terrain during pull-out. If there were mountains in the area – wadis counted as mountains, then they were a noted hazard.

Hawkes and Harm wandered into the briefing room that Animal had requested from the Royal Saudi Air Force which readily complied. It was to their own advantage that the Americans were taking the risk for eliminating Fahd and frankly if it meant that American blood be spilled, the Saudis were for it. Being allies extended only so far. The Saudis were a Muslim nation and thus in the Arab world toed a very thin line between being appeasing of the West versus a standard-bearer for Muslims. Animal looked up at Harm and nodded perfunctorily as he noted that both Harm and Hawkes had sanitized their uniform. Scooter had done the same and he was still getting something to eat. After he finished, he'd join them.

"Have we heard back from Snake-Pen?" Harm asked utilizing the code-word for Webb.

"When he's not talking, I'm enjoying the silence. Unfortunately it doesn't point us anywhere. I think he's enroute with Lantern." Animal growled disgustedly as he looked over at the maps. "Enjoy the downtime while you can. We'll probably be up flying in a short while as soon as Snake Pen communicates."

Scooter walked into the briefing room. "Sorry, guys…" He muttered. "A little bagged from the hop across the pond, so I decided to catch what zzz's I could. Unfortunately, it's damned hot here. Mercury's off the scale." He looked over inquisitively at Animal.

"No problem, Scooter." Animal nodded at Scooter indicating him to take a seat. "We're doing what we can, which isn't a whole hell of a lot since we ain't heard shit from Snake Pen." Getting up, he pulled a can of Coke, disgusted grumbled that it wasn't Pepsi and popped the can open. Taking a swig he growled, "We're on silence. No transmissions out, just receiving on our end. We have shit for intel. And I swear to God, I'm going to break Snake Pen's nose into as many pieces as I possibly can when I get a hold of the sorry son-of-a-bitch." 

Harm felt sorry for Webb. If he thought getting his nose busted by AJ was bad; getting Animal pissed off enough to break some bones was worse by a long shot. Going up on an attack mission profile without having the ThreatInt on tap was deadly. Aviators had died from getting 'mushroomed' by lack of intel.

"Ultimately, we don't know where Fahd is, whether he's in Saudi Arabia, where he's going, what he has, if he still has any of the Stingers or whether he obtained another shipment." Animal continued. "In fact we're completely in the dark." He concluded as he looked over at each one of them. "We don't do anything until we hear from them."

"Sit on thumbs and rotate…I guess…" Scooter commented wryly.

"Sums the whole sitrep up right there…" Harm shrugged his shoulders. "Well, any idea what we're going to do here for the time being."

"Check under your bed for scorpions and sand vipers and catch up on some rest." Animal said.

_**Lufthansa Flight 624, Washington DC to Cairo; Seven hours aloft **_

"Why the hell are we going to Cairo?" Mac angrily asked Webb. "You told us we were going to Saudi Arabia."

"Need to know, Sarah." Webb replied. "We just got a tip that Sadik was in contact with a Turkish Arms buyer and he's meeting the buyer in Port Said in four days. We need to be in Egypt to see the drop take place. He was overheard talking about a Topol."

"Topol?" Mac's jaw dropped open. "That's a nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile. How did the Turks get a hold of that?"

"Turns out Budny, the arms dealer has many tentacles in the Russian mafia and those guys have ways and means of getting stuff out of Russia."

"So…that means we're flying into Cairo International and from there how the hell do we get to Port Said?" Mac liked the situation less and less.

Webb looked around to make sure that no-one was listening in and whispered. "I've got a contact. That's all you need to know for right now."

The flight would be another three hours and Mac twisted and turned uncomfortably as she looked out the window as they flew over the Atlantic. Glaring at her watch didn't seem to make the time go any faster either.

_**Catherine Gale's Apartment, Washington DC, 0055hrs EST.**_

Tossing and turning in her bed wouldn't make Catherine's misgivings go away and let her sleep. She couldn't sleep because Harm was in Saudi Arabia doing something that was highly dangerous and her mind kept spinning the idea that he could end up coming home in a box. With Kershaw telling her to keep her nose out of the matter, she couldn't continue to go digging into the operation; it was a clear warning – continue your meddling at your own peril.

The tightness in her chest made her wonder if Kershaw hadn't slipped something into her coffee that she had at three this afternoon, but realized, as goal-oriented and ruthless as Kershaw was, he wouldn't stoop to outright murder. It had to be a panic attack brought on by her concern for one Harmon Rabb. Damn that aviator, he'd managed to weasel his way into her life and cause her to care about him when she was in a career that didn't leave much room for caring about anything or anyone.

She realized that she had to tread very carefully from now on. And all this wool-gathering wasn't allowing her to sleep. She let out a curse that would have blistered the paint on the walls. How the hell was she going to get any sort of rest if she couldn't sleep in her own room, all by herself?

_**Prince Abdullah Air Base, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia 0830hrs, Arabia Standard Time**_

Harm looked out the tent at the bright sun not yet reaching the forty-five degree mark from the horizon. The Saudi F-15s on the tarmac ensconced in a revet looked as though they were blistering in the heat coming off the asphalt. It was amazing that the tires weren't melting, because he felt like he was. Putting on his RayBan sunglasses, he looked over to see his friend pacing the flight-line. His friend's face was set in an intense frown.

From what Harm could tell, no news was bad news. It meant one of two things. Either the mission had been compromised and they were in danger or the mission had been scrubbed and it was up to them to get the hell out of where they were. But right now their only choice was to wait and see what happened.

As Animal drew closer, Harm could hear him snarl something about "Fucking Snake Pen, I'm going to tattoo my fists all over his face." It probably would be wise for Snake Pen to keep away from Animal for a while. _Quite possibly a long while_, Harm thought, grinning widely at the thought of Webb being inflicted a one sided slug-fest; destination – his face.

When Animal had gotten close enough, he looked up and growled. "No updates, nothing so far." He growled. "They're mushrooming us right now."

Harm shook his head. "You think we should give them a while longer?" he asked as he looked over at their Super Hornets down the airfield that were broiling on the tarmac.

"Well, I can't see what else we can do. We're stuck here, one way or the other."

_**Harm's Apartment, North of Union Station, Washington DC, 0135hrs EST**_

Catherine Gale looked around to ensure there were no busy-bodies as she slipped the lock-pick through the lock and after a few minutes of ensuring the pins fell where they were, undid the lock and slipped into Harm's garage. Seeing an empty garage, knowing that Harm's corvette was more than likely at Oceana, she knew that she would have to find some way of getting into his apartment. Drawing the doors closed, she secured the deadbolts on the garage doors. _Now where would be the most likely places that he would hide a key_. Lawyer or not, she was still an intelligence employee and she had to undergo some operative training in order to obtain evidence which on occasion meant gaining access to premises under lock and key. Of course it was much easier with a warrant, but she had no necessity of such matters as she wasn't in a court case with the occupant of the apartment she was trying to gain access to. Rather than a court-case, she'd much rather be enfolded in his arms…tucked under the covers… _Damn it_, she shook her head, _he must have gotten to me more than I thought_.

_Ah hah_. She grinned triumphantly as she lifted up a toolbox located near the door, there was a little small envelope and from what she could feel, it was two keys in said envelope, she figured one was to the door, the other to the front door of his apartment. She slipped the key in the door-lock, _nope, must be the other one_. She smiled softly as she succeeded with the other one. Opting to use the stairs for quiet, she walked up the lightly echoing stairwell to the floor that she knew Harm's loft was in. Looking both directions to make sure no-one was in the hallway, she swiftly walked to Harm's door. Inserting the key, she turned it, unlocking the door and slipping in quietly into Harm's darkened loft. Shutting the door and locking both deadbolts she drank in the scent of him all around the loft wafting into her nostrils. Ever since that sham wedding they had had the night that she thought her mother was going to die, she had wanted nothing more than to be enveloped by his warm comforting arms. _What the hell was he doing to her, his scent brought feelings to her that weren't of the G-rated kind and he wasn't even here_? If she felt like this now, she was probably with her hormones, going to jump his ass when he got home.

She sat down on his couch for a long moment; just taking in the scents around her…then proceeded to walk into his bedroom, letting the feelings for the man cascade over her like a breaking wave. At least with Harm, she knew she was safe. He'd protect her and her unborn child. Having dressed to come out to Harm's apartment, she undressed again down to her slip, so that she could slip under the covers of Harm's expansive bed and feel warm and secure. His scent wafting about her like a second comforting layer, Catherine finally was able to slip off to sleep.

_**Lufthansa Flight 624, Washington DC to Cairo; 10:00hrs Egypt Standard Time. **_

If Lieutenant Colonel Sarah "Mac" Mackenzie had known where Catherine Gale was; she'd have gone incandescent with rage, but as she didn't, she was semi-relieved to know that the Lufthansa flight that Webb and her were on was about to land very shortly at Cairo International Airport. She was even more relieved when ten minutes later, the B747-400 landed on Runway 05L. "I hope you know what the hell you're doing." She muttered shortly at Webb.

"From here on in…" Webb replied. "I'm Malcolm, you are Zara – that way if anyone tries to identify us, they will only be able to link us to names that we can discard." Mac looked at him with disbelief as if names were all that could potentially be used against them.

"I hope you have the proper notations on our passports as such." Mac said as she looked down the hallway to the Egyptian Customs Authority agents standing at the end of the debarkation jet way. "And considering how you like to smoke, you didn't bring more than 200 cigarettes. Malcolm." She sneered.

"I understand Egyptian importation rules if that's what you're asking, Zara." Webb replied as he tossed off the implied insult. "According to the Egyptian law, you are not allowed to import more than 200 cigarettes (or 25 cigars, or 200g of tobacco) and 2 litres of alcohol. It is also illegal to bring in drugs, firearms, and cotton, so none of those items are things that I have in my possession at the time. If I want to smoke, I will buy them at the local bazaar." He smiled casually. "There is no limit to the amount of currency you can bring in or out of Egypt. However, the traveler is requested to declare amounts of 500 Egyptian Pounds or foreign equivalent, so if I bring in anything more than that, I have to disclose it with the customs agent."

"Glad someone is aware of this matter…Malcolm." She growled. "I'm glad you told me that _before_ we got into the country?" she said sarcastically.

_**Prince Abdullah Air Base, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 1145hrs Arabia Standard Time**_

Animal's sat-phone vibrated as Animal picked up. "Hello!" He growled.

"Viper Lead? It's Snake-Pen, We're on the ground. Shuttling to Port Said, then setting up for a potential surveillance on Fahd. Are you ready to move?"

"Have you got clearance with Pharoah for us to put down there?" Animal snarled. "Because I was thinking you left us high and dry. Knowing how you tend to turn berries sour."

"Yeah…whatever." Snake Pen replied rather sardonically.

"Don't whatever me, Snake-Pen or you may get a fistful of knuckles." Animal didn't take well to Webb's tone. "If you haven't got clearance from Pharoah in 24 hrs, I'm going to leave for home. My patience is running dry! So you'd better hop to it." Skates, Scooter and Harm looked immensely amused at hearing Animal snarl at Webb. "Talk to me when you've got clearance for my Vipers to put down in Cairo. Don't talk to me until you got something. Viper Lead OUT!" and snapped off the connection.

"I think I'm going to go scrounge a couple of warm Cokes." Scooter said as Animal glowered at the phone. "I'd suggest you guys come with me. He's not gonna be in a good mood for a while."

_**Harm's Apartment, North of Union Station, Washington DC, 0635hrs EST**_

Catherine's eyes bulged for a moment as she felt her stomach lurch. Whipping off the blanket, she scurried into the washroom and managed to lean over the toilet before she emptied the contents of her stomach. After purging her stomach, she lay limply against the wall, exhausted. "Screw this…" she said audibly. "I'm calling in sick." Flushing the toilet, she grabbed her cell-phone from her purse.

"Kershaw!" was the barked response from her Deputy Director of CIA Operations.

"Kershaw?" she questioned. "I'm not coming in today. I just puked up my guts this morning and I feel like the room is spinning." She stated. "I may go in to see the doctor, but I'm not doing ANYTHING else!" she growled emphatically daring Kershaw to tell her _no_.

_**Deputy Director, CIA, Office, Langley, VA, 0635hrs EST**_

Deputy Director, CIA Harrison Kershaw grinned to himself as he heard Cathy growl at him over the telephone. She was a spitfire. And being kept apprised of her condition, he knew that it wouldn't be wise to tell her to come into work today. It wasn't known widely, but Langley kept GPS tabs on their agents and Harrison Kershaw knew that the GPS tabs hadn't matched up with her residence location this morning. "Never mind, Catherine, you get well. Hopefully you can let me know when you'll be ready to return to work." At the surprised amazement in Catherine's voice, he chuckled. "I'm not old enough to not remember how my wife felt at that time, Catherine." He said meaningfully, "Best remedy is lots of water and lots of rest."

"How…did you…know?" Catherine said.

"I have eyes." Was all Kershaw would say. "Take care, get some rest."

"Sir, the tabs on her phone's GPS say she's over at Commander Harmon Rabb's place. The coordinates match up exactly." The agent said after he noticed Kershaw place the phone down. Kershaw let out a breath and plastered a grin across his face. _Iron Catherine_ Gale was a driven career woman, some would say _tougher than nails_, but some cracks were showing in that façade.

_**Harm's Apartment, North of Union Station, Washington DC, 0643hrs EST**_

The dial-tone left Catherine with her mouth hanging open in shock. She wasn't sure what to make of Kershaw's ready acquiescent agreement to her missing work for the day. She had been prepared to fight for her _day off _and he had taken the wind out of her sails. After washing her face and patting it dry with a towel that scented of clean laundry soap and Harm, which she lingered in longer than was usual, she returned to the bed and lay down under the covers, to look up at the ceiling, wondering what she could do for the day of rest that she had obtained. She opted to pick up a book and read, gently noting where the book-mark had been placed so that she could replace it in there when she was done. She was already to spend a languid day curled up in Harm's blankets and enjoying his book, when she realized that her stomach was complaining about being hungry.

"Why the hell should I feed you when you're just going to throw it up again?" she grumbled to her stomach as she trudged out to the kitchen to see if Harm had anything in his fridge. Of course she knew that she had to keep the little one in her tummy fed – nurture and cherish and all that. _Sure enough, a typical male bachelor_, she grumped, he'd had nothing cooked before he left. After three days stuck in the fridge, anything that would have been cooked beforehand would have been growing things best not mentioned if, with her uneven constitution, she wanted to keep from having to purge whatever else was left at the bottom of the gaping pit that was her stomach the moment. She sighed and muttered to herself. "I guess I'm going to have to order something or venture out…" trying to come up with a good excuse for being here, if she managed to run into a nosey neighbor.

_**Cairo International Airport, Cairo, Egypt, 1235hrs**_

Webb (Malcolm) wore a disgusted look on his face as Sarah (Zara) looked at him with a curious expression. "So did you make contact with the Vipers."

"Yeah…got an earful too. Doesn't Viper Lead ever shut up?" Webb growled.

"Nope." Mac replied. "And he's a damned good competent officer too. So if I were you, I'd behave yourself."

Hailing a taxicab that moved forward to meet them they both slipped into the back seat.

"As-salām 'alaykum kayfa ḥālak, Shukran. _Hello, How are you, my friend_" The cab-driver turned to Webb and smiled.

"Ana bekhair, shukran! Wa ant?" Webb replied, he had studied the language at Langley, but Mac could still tell that he didn't sound like a native-speaker.

"ayn tʊri:d an naðhab." The driver said. "Where do you wish to go…" he tried to say casually, but he knew that there would be a discussion when Webb had pointed him to the safe-house.

"'ana mehtāg mosa`da" Webb replied. "_I need your help_," he paused then said in English. "Where is the safehouse."

"Safe house… I will take you there…" The cabdriver stated in heavily Middle Eastern accented English. "My contact…he will meet you there. Mr. Malcolm." And gave him a big wink to let him know that he was one of the CIA contacts there.

Mac looked over at Webb. She wasn't too sure of the situation but the crawling feeling that was going up her spine wasn't telling her anything good about this. And the way that the cab-driver was talking up Webb wasn't giving her a good sign. The cab continued to wind its way through the streets of Cairo. The farther he went into the inner city the more alarm bells were going off in her mind. It was time to get out as far as she could think and at the first stop for the light, Mac instantaneously reacted, just as the driver was starting pull away, she kicked open the door and dove out of the car. When she had come to a stop, she picked herself up and started sprinting.

_**Egyptian Cab, Cairo Egypt. **_

"Wait…Mac…what are you doing!?" Webb shouted frantically, wondering why Mac would just throw herself out of the cab like that…just as the cab-driver looked over. "Hold on a moment!" Webb made to get up. Just as another person got in the open door of the cab, sat down beside him. "Let the woman go. We will deal with her when she brings her friends with her." the new person said calmly to the taxi-driver and then turned to look at him. "Well, Mr. Webb…we meet again."

_**Streets of Cairo, Egypt 1250hrs**_

Mac sprinted taking several turns and zigzags along the alley, terror fueling her every step. It was a trap and there was no way that she could rescue Webb. Not unless she had made efforts to communicate with Langley and she did not have any way of communicating with anyone. All she knew was that her cell-phone was in the back of a now moving cab rapidly receding in the milieu of the traffic that was Cairo Egypt. Her next task was to find someone that she could use to help her.

"law samahti?" a kindly old gentleman asked. "You look as though Shezmu has chased you throughout Cairo. Is there something wrong?"

Mac half-sobbed as she panted for breath, exhausted from the run, but knowing that she wasn't out of danger yet. "Esmi…Zara…Zara Mackenzie; I am lost, I need to find the American Embassy. Please help me…"

"My child, my child…yes…of course…I shall help you…" He looked around carefully making sure that he was not heard. He ushered her forward to guide her towards his home which he shared with his children and his elderly wife, "My son will take you there. Unfortunately I cannot. My bones are frail and my limit of walking has been reached for today. There have been reports of kidnappings, so the best place to take you would be your country's embassy. Be calm, Zara…we shall get you home."

_**CIA Headquarters; Langley, VA 2135hrs EST**_

"Jason, Call in DDCIA. We've got a miss on a contact by Snake-Pen. Repeat Snake-Pen is missing."

_**Streets of Cairo, Egypt 0535hrs**_

Samir, the boy furtively traced his steps across the pavement as he ducked in from shadow to lengthening shadow as they made their way towards the US Consulate on Amrika Al Latinia from New Cairo City…in the opposite direction of where she and Webb were supposed to have been heading. At least there, she would be able to be in the company of United States Marines who would be guarding the United States Consulate.

"Hurry…" was all the boy would say as he motioned her forward. "Hurry…"


	5. Chapter 5

_**Streets of Cairo, Egypt 1810hrs**_

Mac could see the stripes of Old Glory curled around the flagpole as she approached from the West Side, Samir hurriedly urging her on. She was met by two Marine guards who interrogated her at the gate for a long moment before ushering her through and she thanked the boy for guiding her through and wished him safe passage back to his home. Western parents would have blanched at allowing their child to run around without supervision, but the parents in these parts knew that their children knew the safe passages and such was life – they couldn't be cocooned. Life was dangerous enough for the adults. If the children didn't learn what was safe and what wasn't they became casualties, such was life growing up in the Middle East.

When she was through, she was ushered into a meeting with the consul-general. Daniel Novak was a thirty-five year veteran of the Foreign Service and was appointed consul-general by the current administration. He looked impassive as Mac related her story and then coldly remarked. "Well, Webb knew the risks when he signed up for intelligence work, Colonel Mackenzie. I can't justifiably send thirty United States Marines fully armed and dressed in combat gear into the streets of Cairo. That will stir up a considerable amount of resentment from the native population. Now my question is what we do with you? You were on the streets of Cairo with a street urchin and no visible means of identification. You state that you're a colonel in United States Marines, the only reason why you're not thrown back on the street is because we checked into your story and we found out that you are serving in the United States Marine Corps and you serve with the Judge Advocate General. Your picture matches up with who you say you are. Colonel, you're a long way from home." He casually observed as he looked Mac up and down to assess the veracity of her claims. "Despite the tenuous diplomatic ties that we observe, Cairo is a dangerous place. Car bombings by the Muslim Brotherhood, kidnappings, and murder, you were extremely lucky, Colonel Mackenzie. Now you say that you need to talk to someone at Langley? Now my question is why? What would the CIA have to do with anything in Egypt? My men are diplomats. Colonel Mackenzie. They are not spooks."

Mac looked at the consul-general. He was blatantly denying that he had intelligence links within the consulate.

_**Somewhere in Egypt, 1845hrs**_

"Mr. Webb. How very nice to see you again." The memory of his voice burned into Clayton Webb's memory. "Funny how you have met us on home soil. Paraguay seems to be so far away now, does it not?" The eyes were still dead and soulless, Webb thought as he gazed into the eyes of a man that he had been tortured to the brink of death by and his own soul shriveled, because he knew that there was no one who knew where he was. The Agency would deny that he even existed. He was in the clutches of a man who would squash him like an irritating insect and there was nothing that he could do about it. If there was an illustration for a word like despair in the dictionary, Webb, now, would be the very image. "Oh no, Mr. Webb, why would I wish to kill you?" Sadik Fahd's face was menacingly close as he whispered, "You would only be one unsatisfying casualty in our jihad against the Great Satan." He leaned back and said mockingly. "Why kill one when I can kill over five hundred thousand?"

"You're insane."

"…and you, Mr. Webb, will go for the ride."

_**United States Consulate, Cairo, Egypt, 1935hrs**_

No cell phone, no way to call Langley; Mac paced her assigned room like a caged tiger. This operation was no longer viable with the way it had gone down. The main contact had been captured, she was on her own in a country that was foreign to her; she had no visible means of support and there was no way to do anything but get home and find out from the horse's mouth that their operation was a no-go. In the meantime there was a nuclear missile that could potentially be launched at Washington DC and they would all go up in a nuclear conflagration when it landed. If she was correct, the Topol M had the potential to drop four warheads on top of DC. But they wouldn't know what type Sadik had managed to get his hands on until it exploded over DC.

If she could only manage to find a way to get some money to buy a plane ticket back to the United States or a way to contact the Admiral, he'd be able to get something happening to help Webb. But then again, she thought, Chegwidden hated Webb. She wrestled with her thoughts but she knew that Chegwidden had a sense of honor that he wouldn't leave Webb out to hang, or would he: he certainly did Harm prior to the events of Paraguay. She really couldn't resolve what she could potentially do next. There were no boots on the ground to find out where and when Sadik was going to make his next move. But if they didn't have boots on the ground, how would they know what was going to happen? Right now the Vipers were stuck on the ground; they had no point of reference as to where they were going to attack. How would they be able to pinpoint where the target was. The shipment was to be made in three days and then Sadik would grab it and disappear, as well as he could with a Topol ICBM and a large multi-wheeled truck in the desert. Perhaps the intel satellites could capture the image of the ICBM before it disappeared into whatever wilds that the African continent would manage.

_**Somewhere in Egypt, 1945hrs Egypt Standard Time**_

"You will find that I am not barbaric in my methods." Sadik stated as he looked at Webb, "With those in Central America, you have to show them who is the boss or they will think that you are somewhat less than they are. Brutality is the only language that they understand. You are in my world now, Mr. Webb, let us say that we shall be a bit more civil." He nodded to his attendant who stood up. "Abdul will take you to your quarters. You shall not try to escape or we shall revert back to the methods that we used in Paraguay to teach you that you are our prisoner." The obsidian eyes of the predator; Webb knew that he was doomed. There was no way out of it.

Abdul grabbed him by the arm and half-dragged him out of the room.

_**CIA Headquarters, Langley, VA, 1300hrs EST**_

"What the hell happened?!" Kershaw burst into the room. "How the hell did Webb get compromised?!" he rounded the corner of the desk and glared at the two controllers. "Where the hell is he?"

"The only thing that we can suspect is that he was picked up at Cairo Airport by one of Sadik's men."

"Jesus Christ!" Kershaw swore as he shook his head. "Where the hell's Lantern?"

"We don't know. We tried calling the consul and they didn't say anything."

Kershaw swore again. "I want some boots on the ground there. You find out what the hell happened. If we don't do something about it, DC is going to get turned into radioactive slag!"

"Who do we send that's familiar with the area?"

"We've lost one agent out there. I'm not sending another agent out. I'm going to have to brief the President and find out what he wants to do. We can't keep this under the desk now." Kershaw growled. "I'm going to have to talk to Watts, but there isn't a damned thing I can do to keep this from getting out."

"What can't you do to keep what from getting out?" Kershaw whirled around to see Director Watts looking at him. "Just what the hell is going on? Harrison? Would you like to enlighten me about what we have to talk to the President about?"

"Snake Pen is missing, presumed captured or dead and the Vipers are stuck in Jeddah awaiting orders on a mission that we have nobody on the ground for and we have a Topol missile with warhead enroute to Port Said. We can't sink the vessel because the cargo is going under a Turkish flag and the Turks are our allies. We need to witness the handover of the weapon so that we know that the weapon is in confirmed hostile hands." Kershaw replied.

Watts lowered his head, raised his hand up to rub his forehead and sighed. "Call the President, tell him that we need a meeting, top security clearance only, and we need it ASAP. You know heads are going to roll on this."

"What do we do about the Vipers? Norman."

"You put someone on the ground with them telling them what they need to do, which for the time being is someone that they know and can trust."

"And who's that?"

"Put Squid and Angel on the ground at Jeddah." Watts replied.

Kershaw and the controllers looked at each other.

_**Somewhere in Egypt, 2000hrs Egypt Standard Time**_

"Abdul. You will guard him." Sadik looked at the guard. "I need to go talk to another." Webb from his cell listened to his captor's footsteps depart.

Sadik looked over at another man standing to the left as he entered the room. "Naeem, you will go to Jeddah and meet with one of our men. You will find out why Webb is nicknamed Snake Pen. We have been monitoring his operations." He laughed softly – the arrogance of the Americans knew no bounds. How many of his men had he inserted into America itself? How many had worked every day American lives with their neighbors none the wiser? How many of those had taken on personas of the every day American Arab who enjoyed baseball and football and other decadent American pastimes? He shook his head as he wondered about the simplicity yet complicated machinations that were necessary to put his pawns in place. Political correctness and Fair Hiring practices had enabled him to slot in his moles into the highest echelons of public office, law enforcement and intelligence agencies on the grounds that they were aware of the terrorist threat, had first-hand knowledge of the terrorists and how they thought. The Americans thinking that they were so smart, but not realizing that the teachers were themselves the learners and siphoning off useful information to feed their cells which in turn came back to Sadik himself, were fast being turned into the informational equivalent of swiss cheese. "We will monitor and see what it is that they are doing…then when they are least aware we will move in and strike…" Sadik informed him. "You Naeem will be my instrument of revenge. The Americans seek to harm us, we will remove that threat."

_**White House, 1600 Pennsylvania, Washington DC, 1600hrs EST**_

"Are you saying that there's a nucular weapon involved?!" the President of the United States growled, his Texas accent in full display. "Why the hell didn't I hear 'bout this before hand?!"

"We didn't know exactly how serious the situation would become." Dir. CIA Watts tried to explain.

"Well, this is absolute horseshit, as far as I'm concerned." The President growled. "You people are expected to monitor the situation and we now have a Topol M pointed at Washington DC?"

"Well, Mr. President. The weapon is still in transit to Port Said, sir."

"No ifs ands or buts, Gentlemen, we are going to put SOG to work. This has been cluster-fucked enough. Call General Howard in and get him on the line with JSOC at the Farm. I want this nuclear missile blown off the face of the earth."

"We have the Vipers in Jeddah that can put some JDAMs on the missile when we locate it."

"That's WHEN you locate it." The President snapped. "Considering just how badly your operations screwed up this one. What makes you think that we should entrust the missile's destruction to the Company?"

"Well, we have Navy assets in place."

"Well, better than nothing I guess." The President snorted.

"Lantern's cooling her heels in the US Consulate in Cairo. We're sending a pair of agents to retrieve her."

"Well get on it, time's a wastin'." The President snapped.

_**Prince Abdullah Airbase, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 1030hrs Saudi Arabia Standard Time (next morning)**_

Harm looked up to see two figures walking across the tarmac from a Challenger Global. When they got up close enough, the man grinned a wide smile. "Hey Harm…thought we'd drop in and say hi…"

"Keeter!" Harm exclaimed. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Well…long story short. We were hauling some stuff across country, landed in Washington and got the call to wander over the pond and stop off in sunny Jeddah. I have absolutely no idea what for."

"Hey, Harm. What you doing now?"

"Back in the Navy." Harm grinned as he looked over at the other figure. "Beth?"

"Yep. In the flesh." Beth O'Neil grinned at him. "Like Keeter said, we're stuck out here until whatever the hell happens happens."

"Can we talk somewhere where there isn't anyone listening?" Jack asked. "And it might be better talking to the guy who's actually in charge here. Sorry, ol' buddy, I just know it ain't you…" he grinned at Harm who just shrugged his shoulders.

The operations tent was just that, a tent in the middle of the desert just off to the side of the tarmac and Harm pushed the tent flap aside. "Animal, we got some visitors."

Animal looked up from the table and grinned. "Fancy meetin' you here, Jack. You working for the Company now?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny that…" Keeter said. "Sorry…but what I can say is that we got a major clusterfuck happening."

"You can say that again." Animal growled. "We've been stuck out here for the past two days with no intel whatsoever."

"Well, the information gets worse, Animal." Keeter said. "Sadik…the guy you're chasing after managed to get himself an honest-to-goodness nuclear tipped Topol-M missile on top of his Stingers." Beth Hawkes and Scooter both inhaled sharply as they looked at each other. On top of that what was left unsaid by all of them (even Keeter and Beth knew this as they were both former military). It meant the site was going to be heavily defended to give the missile the best chance at achieving launch.

"Jesus Christ!" Animal felt like he was getting a major league headache.

"The Saudis say they can't help us but we've got some other guys who can. The UK is willing to send us four of their Tornado GR4 strike and four Tornado F3s. That'll give us ten aircraft in total and twenty crew. They should arrive tonight." Keeter continued. "They should be in about 2100hrs our local time."

"So you're saying that we'll have sufficient air coverage to take on these bastards and give us a fighting chance?" Animal grumbled. "The deal keeps getting worse and worse."

_**US Consulate, Cairo, 0945hrs**_

"Colonel?" Mac's eyes cracked open wide enough to notice the man in the room.

"What the hell…?" Mac snarled. "What are you doing in my room?"

"Colonel Mackenzie, I'm Martin Jackson. I'm supposed to get you out of here and on a plane…"

"Where?!" Mac said. "I have to rendezvous with Viper. I need to let them know that their mission was compromised."

"They know. We have assets on the ground with them. We've also achieved some ratification with allies that they will render some assistance." Jackson replied. "We are taking you over to Jeddah, but I will need to find out what you have learned so far."

"Snake Pen has been captured by Sadik." Mac said, desperately trying to see if there was any sort of compassion in the man's nature that they might be able to get Webb out of there.

There was none.

_**Prince Abdullah Airbase, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 2200hrs**_

"Hello, Wing Commander David Abbott…" The fresh-faced young looking British Royal Air Force officer in full flight gear grinned as he extended his hand to shake Animal's "I command the Tornado F3 contingent. And this is Wing Commander Milton Chamberlain, he's the CO for the GR4 contingent."

"Good evening, Gentlemen." Animal grinned as he dropped the bomb on them. "Rear Admiral Toshio Nakamura. Pleased to make your acquaintance. Wing Commanders." As the rank Admiral dropped from Animal's lips the two Royal Air Force Wing Commanders and their various subordinates who had assembled snapped to attention.

"Beg our pardon, sir. Without your rank on your flying suit, we were unaware of the fact that you held high rank. Our apologies, sir."

"Not a problem." Animal replied as he grinned at them. "On this operation, it might be a good point to sanitize your uniform, to prevent hostiles from perhaps using it as a bargaining chip. Gentlemen, we should retire to the briefing room. I do have current information from intelligence operatives who know more about this than we do." He nodded to Jack Keeter and Beth O'Neil.

When the entire group had filed into the operations tent, the tent had reached almost maximum capacity.

"How about you explain the situation, Jack." Animal nodded as he took a seat to the side.

"Well…Sadik Fahd has an off-shoot of Al Qaeda called the Islamic Brotherhood. The reason beyond this was because Sadik feels that Al Qaeda has done nothing since 9/11 and he wants to inflict a lot of damage to the United States. He doesn't feel Al Qaeda with their one strike terrorist attack is waging enough jihad against the West. Now that you know his motives, here are his intentions. Somehow with his connections into the former Soviet Union, he is now in possession of a Topol nuclear missile aimed at the heart of the United States government in Washington DC. We have no idea if it is a MIRV weapon or whether the Topol is tipped with only one nuclear warhead of an 800Kt. Yield. Accurate particulars are not easy to come by." Keeter stated as the pilots took down notes. "Our objective is to eliminate the threat by taking out the weapon with an airstrike with Joint Direct Attack Munitions – JDAMs. The threat comes from RIM92 Stinger surface to air missiles of which we are aware that he has managed to obtain about two hundred of them, from where we do not know, all we know is that he has them.

Softly uttered British accented curses filled the room. "Fucking hell… Bloody Christ! Jesus!"

"The Topol nuclear missile is in transit to Port Said. However he will be removing it from there, taking it through the desert and we estimate that it will be launched from a point west of Douar Oulad Chetwan in the Moroccan desert. It is estimated that he will choose the cover of the Moroccan forests to cover his launch site and thus make it much more difficult to pinpoint his location." Keeter paused for a long moment. "It's going to mean that we're going to have to hit him before he takes his travelling circus on the road."

"You are meaning that we have to hit him while he's on the move in the desert before he reaches his destination?" A young flight lieutenant asked.

"That's correct." Keeter replied. "Because once he gets it under cover, we have no way of finding him except by dropping massive tons of ordnance on top of him hoping that we get secondaries. Admiral Nakamura will be mission lead. Wg Cdrs Abbott and Chamberlain will be flight leads. Abbott, you will be fighter lead for British fighters, Chamberlain, you are strike lead."

"Yes, sir!" Abbott and Chamberlain barked smartly.

_**Harm's Apartment, North of Union Station, Washington DC, 1700hrs.**_

Catherine sat on the couch. Her stomach had been bothering her all day and she had asked Kershaw if she could leave early. Having been warned once about sticking her nose into operations, she felt a lot better if she was out of the office and not able to overhear the bits of worrying news that kept cropping up and had Kershaw on tender-hooks. From what she could make out, the mission had gone south as did most of Webb's assignments. She didn't know what was currently going on, but it certainly made it appear as though nobody knew what the hell was going on and that didn't do much for her stress levels. She'd tried to go every day to Pimmitt Hills to see her mother, but sometimes her job didn't allow for it as there were fires to be put out on the legal front and many of those cases involved late nights. So she brought her brief-case over to Harm's place and sat down on the couch to go over her files. At least the thought of his scent and its presence kept her emotional equilibrium on an even keel.

Catherine looked over at the fridge, her stomach had settled enough from this morning's gymnastics to allow her to get herself something to eat. She'd brought over the majority of her food from her fridge to place into Harm's refrigerator, that way she didn't have to constantly go and order some food. Her potato casserole was now nestled in the fridge and it was the only thing that seemed to soothe her stomach after vomiting up half of last night's food into Harm's toilet and the other half in the bathroom at work. She sighed as she took a bowl from Harm's shelf and spooned a small helping of it into a bowl, and poured herself a glass of water. She then retrieved bowl and glass and headed back for the living room.

_**Somewhere in Cairo, 2145hrs**_

"Mr. Webb…Come!" Abdul said as he roughly yanked Clayton Webb to his feet. "We are going somewhere. You will come with us…"

"Where are we going?" Webb asked warily, but was rewarded with another vicious yank on his arm.

"No questions." The burly guard said.

_**Sheraton Jeddah Hotel, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 2245hrs**_

"It's too late, Colonel Mackenzie. We're not going to be able to get to the base until tomorrow." Catching a flight out of Cairo International was not able to be done until late in the evening and by the time the airliner touched down at the international airport in Jeddah, they had to find rooms. "We'll have to meet with the Vipers in the morning."

"So who's monitoring the shipment?" Mac asked; her tone suspicious. "If the package gets lost, then we're in deep trouble."

_**A C-17 over the Mediterranean Sea, 1900hrs Morocco Standard Time**_

"Hey, Roach!" SEAL Team Ten leader grinned at his buddy. Roach was the heavy gunner on the team. He manned the Accuracy International AS50 50 caliber sniper rifle. He was the guy who kept them all protected while they did the sneaking. According to their radio calls, he was "God". "You got all your ammo?"

"All right here, buddy." He tapped his back pack where he kept two extra magazines of five 50 cal. rounds each.

"OK…let's go over the deal guys. We HALO in at these coords here, hump three miles to the dock, watch the transfer take place…then we trail them all the way to wherever the hell; we light 'em up with lasers so Viper and Adder flights will pound the living shit out of those tangos. We got two platoons going in. Eight guys each. We'll separate into four man fire-teams and Fire Team Alpha will scout the dock, while Bravo, Charlie and Delta will watch their exit. At the rendezvous, we will be shadowed by Marlin and Tuna twenty miles off shore, we will exfil by the beach and by swimming out to either Marlin or Tuna whichever is closer. Understand the drill?"

"HOO-AH!" was the response. "Viper and Adder flights?"

"Two F/A-18F Super Hornets and Eight British Tornadoes."

"Haha! Brits coverin' our asses again." Cheered one of the sixteen.

"Let's make it count or DC's going up in flames." Team 10 Leader commented soberly.


	6. Chapter 6

_**A C-17 over the Mediterranean Sea, 2035hrs Egypt Standard Time**_

"We will land one mile out and swim in towards Sharq at Tafriah, from there we will infiltrate the area surrounding the Port and watch as the missile is unloaded, then obtain transportation and see where they transport the weapon. With the six thousand eight hundred mile range that the Topol M can hit, DC is well within that target radius. We need to make sure that we don't miss the hand-off so that we can tail the tangos and light them up once we're clear of the populated area." Team 10 Leader looked at his wrist altitude indicator. He preferred the MA3-30 because it indicated clearly what altitude he was at from thirty thousand all the way down. He didn't have to count how many revolutions the jump indicator had unwound in a high-stress environment.

Making sure everybody checked their gear once more time, he noticed the jump-master hooked up make his way over to the group. "Five minutes to drop zone" the man radioed over the sound of the engines as he started to walk over. At thirty-thousand feet altitude, the men had to have their oxygen masks on in order to be able to survive, or they wouldn't have enough oxygen in their bloodstream to stay conscious.

At the one minute marker, Team 10 Lead ordered. "Masks on!" The aircraft was pressurized with 100% oxygen so that there would be no experiencing of bends on the way down, the same as it was for scuba divers, but once the divers were out of the aircraft they had to have oxygen so they . They carried oxygen bottles with enough reserve oxygen for 3 minutes, two primaries and a reserve just in case the first one malfunctioned. So they had roughly about six minutes of oxygen attached.

"GO GO GO!" sounded in their helmet earphones as the ramp came open. It was a stampeded to the end of the ramp as adrenaline pumping they hurled themselves out of the back of the C-17 Globemaster II.

"Watch the first step…Jonas! It's a doozy!" yelled one as he somersaulted off the back end of the ramp.

"Shit…don't wanna do this, but what the hell…you only live once." Jonas replied as he hopped off.

_**Prince Abdullah Airbase, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 0800hrs.**_

The aviators hit the sack since it would be an early morning when they checked back in with the boots on the ground to see what was going on. The ship transporting the missile was scheduled to be in Port Said at 0430 Egypt Time which would be one hour behind in Saudi Arabia time. Then the missile would be transported along Egyptian roads down to the crossing at Al Salam Peace Bridge then they would clear the bridge and move the truck across the bridge…at least that's what they figured on the map as the most logical route.

It would be a long route that would take at least fifty hours for the Topol-M to cross to Morocco so the aviators opted to catch some sleep while they could because it would be involve several hours of flying before they caught them somewhere between Algeria and their final destination of Morocco.

It was about 0800hrs by the time that Harm stirred from his rack. Shaking out his boots hard enough to make sure that there weren't any creepy crawlies in the boot; too many soldiers found out the hard way that fat-tailed scorpions could kill. Adults could vary in color from a light brown to reddish to blackish-brown, to black; they had highly potent venom and despite their size, could kill in minutes. Having been assured that his boots didn't gather any nasty little creatures of the _Androctonus _species, he slipped his socked feet into his boots.

"You awake?" Animal grinned cheerily as he looked over at his wingman. "Keeter just got the latest update and O'Neill's about to brief us. KH-12 caught the handover at 0415 and they now have about four hours on the road and a second KH-12 picked them just south of Alexandria. Libya wants no part of the Islamic Brotherhood in their lands; a transit of a ballistic missile launcher and nuclear missile would leave egg on their face and Muammar Gaddafi has told us in no uncertain terms that if they cross into Libya that we are allowed to take them out, which is a feat in itself." Harm looked shocked. The flamboyant Libyan leader was known to dislike American involvement in Libya and had more than once defied the Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone Act of 1977 including two famous incidents that involved US Navy fighters versus Libyan fighters to the Libyans' detriment.

By this time, Harm was fully up and cognizant of his surroundings, grabbing his overseas cap, he walked out into the bright morning sunlight towards the operations tent. Harm looked over to find walking towards the tent were also Scooter, Skates and the British crews of the Tornadoes that had just come in last night. After a rapid flurry of _morning_ and _good mornings_ from the crews, they found seats in the operations tent.

Animal stood up, "The latest intel from the KH-12 shows the Topol headed west, their last known location was just south of Alexandria. We'll have more intel coming in as the intel guys can get us the information." He paused for a moment. "Now that's what I got from our eyes in the sky. We also have intel from JSOC who have boots on the ground. And that's what O'Neill will tell us next."

"Well…we just found out that JSOC dropped two full eight-man teams into Port Said last night. They laid low, adopted local attire and are presently tailing Sadik's convoy. They are currently reporting that the convoy has reached El Agamy via the International Coastal Road. We assume that they will be taking that route all the way through. Libya has given us carte-blanche to take them out." Beth O'Neill indicated as she put up an overhead map. Pointing her pointer to the location, she commented. "We will wait until they get into position just east of Tubruq Al Butnan in Libya and then we will take them out. After a successful strike in which RAF Forces will recover at Port Said, where they will take on fuel and then head for home, US forces, that's you two, Admiral Nakamura and Commander Rabb will proceed to Mighty Ike which is in the Med waiting to recover your Hornets. Any questions?" she paused for a moment.

At this point in the briefing, a brief flash of light caused their attention to turn to the tent's entrance flap where Mac and another CIA agent stood: the brief flash indicating the tent flaps opening. "We have a problem." The CIA agent said. "Snake Pen has been captured by Sadik Fahd. We have Lantern here, but there isn't any way to light up the target." Evidently the CIA agent hadn't been briefed.

"You're a day late and a dollar short. Spook." Animal growled, cheesed off that the CIA agent had interrupted the briefing. "JSOC has taken over your duties. But until we are finished our briefing you are not to interrupt."

"…but…Clay…" Mac interrupted.

"What part of what I just said did you not comprehend? Lieutenant Colonel?!" Animal snapped as he stood up.

Mac braced to attention.

"If you wish to confer with us before the mission, you will wait until after the briefing is over! You have two choices, you can either remain silent here or you can wait in the shade by the grove of palm trees. We have four and a half hours before mission start after the briefing is over and we need to ascertain what load-outs are needed to efficiently remove the threat. We need to be overhead target in six." Animal affixed a glare on Mac.

"Yes, sir!" Mac looked unhappy but she knew better than to push Animal's buttons.

It was a long briefing. Every eventuality from target not being taken out to deliberate missile launch was covered and every possible missile threat up to and including Libyan aircraft was discussed. That left barely enough time for lunch.

"Walk with me!" Animal commanded as Harm and Mac fell into step behind him. "So…what was it that you wished to discuss, Lieutenant Colonel Mackenzie?"

"Sir, Sadik has captured Webb."

"And the problem is…?" Animal kept striding towards the mess tent.

"We need to get him out before the target is taken out. Otherwise he'll go up with the target."

"Not feasible…" was Animal's brief reply.

"Sir, he'll die." Mac protested.

"Lieutenant Colonel Mackenzie. I am up against a brick wall here." Animal growled ominously, stopping abruptly in his tracks forcing Mac to stop precipitously or run straight into his back. Whirling around on her, he snapped. "At any point in this transit, Fahd could drop stabilizers, point the missile and fire it. Do you understand?" Cutting off any further protests, he continued. "In Washington DC, there are over two million people in the area at any given moment. If an eight hundred kiloton nuclear warhead detonates over DC, you will have over six hundred thousand dead, not including injured. Are you reading me, Lieutenant Colonel?" he continued dispassionately. "…and you are asking me to consider the life of one person over six hundred thousand?" He leaned in, his face dark with fury, "I have my orders, if I have to remove Sadik Fahd from this earth with due prejudice, I will drop that JDAM, no questions asked! Do you understand me!"

"Sir, YES SIR!" Mac barked.

"Commander Rabb, with me!" Animal snapped, "You, Colonel Mackenzie." He growled. "Get out of my sight!"

_**SEAL Team 10, Sid Barrani, Egypt 1200hrs**_

"Miller, you got the convoy in sight?" Their canvas backed delivery truck was following the missile launcher at a half-mile behind the convoy. Keeping a low profile in the desert was hard to do, but they were managing.

"Got 'em." Miller was their point man. He and his spotter were ahead of the convoy about two miles ahead on Honda off-roading motorbikes specially maintained for hot weather use and specially equipped with wheels that could dig into the sand for greater traction. They'd taken cover behind sand dunes and were off-roading it to keep ahead of the convoy. "Doesn't look like they're stopping."

"Tell Pavelec to keep an eye out if there are any scouts with Stingers. If there are, I gotta report them in, so that Adder and Viper flights don't get ambushed."

"Roger that. Keeping a close eye on 'em." Miller replied. "Let you know if I see anything." Switching over to the channel that he communicated with Pavelec, he whispered. "Marty, you see anything."

SO3 Martin Pavelec grinned. "I see one guy on the passenger side with a Stinger, but nobody's hanging off the rails; too bumpy of a ride. But I can't see in the trucks. We'd best get going. So we don't let them get too far ahead." Getting on his motorbike, he turned it on, accelerating up the sand dune. Likewise. SO2 Rich Miller grabbed his M4A1 SOPMOD carbine and slipped it over his shoulder cradling it across his back, got back on his back and kicked the start on his bike. Likewise he gunned the engine and accelerated to get ahead of the convoy.

_**Viper Flight, Over the Red Sea, 1210hrs**_

Animal adjusted the oxygen mask comfortably over his face as Harm flew welded wing on his starboard and just behind his three-nine line. "Viper Lead, Viper Two, settle yourself in, it's gonna be a long flight." At just under three hours, the two F/A-18F Super Hornets were flying at cruising speed, to conserve fuel. Looking back, he could see the eight RAF Tornadoes in two formations of finger four. In one hour they would be over Egypt, "So, Viper Two, you ready for this?"

"As ready as I'll ever be, Lead."

"Good. Need you focused out there, Hammer."

"Aye, that, Lead."

_**Viper Flight, Over Target Area, 1502hrs. **_

"Vipers and Adders. Confirmed visual on target." Animal barked out over the comm. "One o'clock low." He could see the dust cloud from the vehicle being kicked up over a mile away.

Harm noted the dust cloud as well. "Roger, confirmed…it's our target."

"Roll on target." Animal commanded as he grasped his stick, looking through his HUD sighting the lead truck and aiming his 20mm's on it. No need to waste a JDAM on that bastard.

_**Sadik's Egyptian Delivery Truck, five miles east of Tobruk, 1502 hrs**_

Sadik Fahd looked startled as 20mm shells kicked up fountains of dust in front of his truck. "Brake, you idiot!" he screamed as he saw an American aircraft fly past at high speed. "Get me the Stinger…" he bellowed at one of his followers. Grabbing the Stinger he aimed it out the truck window.

_**Viper Lead, Over Target Area 1502 22 secs. **_

"Got a Stinger tone tracking us." Scooter replied as he watched the radar in the WSO

_**Viper Two, Over Target Area 1502 26 secs**_

Harm grinned as he saw the truck in front of him as he gripped the trigger on the 20mm cannon and his F/A-18F jerked slightly in its forward motion as the 20mm cannon shells rained down on the truck. He knew he had the truck dead in his sights as he smiled behind his oxygen mask.

_**MZKT-79221 Missile Truck, five miles east of Tobruk, 1502 30 secs**_

The missile truck driver had to brake hard to avoid hitting the Sadik's truck in front of him as the engine of the delivery truck erupted in flames. He saw Sadik bail out and hit the ground, rolling several times before the truck went up in a thunderous explosion a hundred feet down the road.

_**Adder Lead, 15000 feet, five miles south, 1503hrs**_

"Target acquired." Wing Commander Chamberlain grinned. "Adder Two Flight Lead on target." In the Tornado heads up display, there was a scrolling altitude indicator and the bomb target reticle. The target danced in the reticle for a brief moment, but stabilized as Wg Cdr Chamberlain managed to steady the Tornado on its bomb-track. "There's a good bloke. Stay in the target reticle." The seeker on the GBU-24 2000lb Paveway sighted in on the MZKT-79221 as he triggered the release of the guided bomb unit and the Tornado felt suddenly lighter. "Adder Two Flight, acquire your targets and release as necessary."

"Adder Two Two…Roger."

"Adder Two Three Roger

"Adder Two Four Roger."

Having two bombs each, the Tornadoes were to do one pass, drop a bomb and then come around from a different angle and acquire the target again and repeat the process.

_**MZKT-79221 Missile Truck, five miles east of Tobruk, 1503hrs**_

Clayton Webb hyperventilated, knowing that he was a dead man. When he saw the truck in front of the missile truck passenger compartment on which he was riding in go up in flames, he knew that his time was short. He knew that there was no way out with him handcuffed with both hands to the support beams on the truck compartment and that no-one would be coming for him. Actually since the truck itself was the target he was right on ground zero. There was no way out. The first bomb hit the rear of the missile truck blowing away the wheels on both ends and igniting the rocket fuel in a combustible vapor around the truck, the second impacted to the left, causing the missile to erupt in an massive explosion, the only thing protecting Clayton Webb was the passenger compartment which was designed to withstand a launch of the Topol M. Unfortunately it only granted him a short reprieve as the third and fourth GBU-24s landed right on top of the passenger compartment allowing him only a brief flash of light and unbelievable pain before his sight ended in a conflagration and he knew nothing more.

_**Viper Lead, Over Target Area, 1504hrs **_

Animal circled the target area, Harm on his wing. The missile truck looked like an inferno, the missile had ruptured and the warhead was destroyed spreading radioactive uranium all around the area for at least a square quarter-kilometer, the on-board Geiger counter in the aircraft was ratcheting up. "Adder flights, abort second pass, Mongoose exfil! NOW!"

All aircraft and trucks departed the area as quickly as they could. Hopefully, Animal thought as he engaged burner, that they would be able to escape radiation contamination. The F/A-18s headed towards the Mediterranean and Adder flights exfiltrated to Cairo. The radiation meant that any survivors from the Islamic Brotherhood would be contaminated and would no longer be a problem. That would solve the problem of Sadik Fahd once and for all. Sadik being exposed to radiation would spell a death sentence for him within a few hours let alone a few weeks – they had not left him with any sort of transportation out of the hot-zone. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy, Animal thought sardonically as he and Harm flew out over the Mediterranean.

_**USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, CVN-69, in the Mediterranean Sea, 1545hrs**_

"Viper Lead and Viper Two are inbound, just called out feet wet, sir." CAG said. "Changing callsigns to Black Lion 206 and Black Lion 208."

"Good, they made a good kill on that missile." the Admiral said. "When Admiral Nakamura gets on board, ask him to come see me." RDML Webster ordered the CAG. The CAG understood that since RADM Nakamura wore two stars and the COMSTRKGRP, the RDML's request was just a request.

"Sir, they just trapped aboard. They've notified us that they are checking in with medical. When they targeted the missile, the warheads ruptured, spilling radiation and they are ensuring that they weren't exposed."

"Very well…"

_**Medical Office, USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, CVN-69, In the Mediterranean Sea, 1615hrs**_

Running the Geiger counter over Harm, the doctor nodded his head. "Commander Rabb, you're fine. Lieutenant Commander Hawkes, you're in good health too. Nothing indicates that you two received excessive exposure to radiation." The checks of the last two aviators noted that there was nothing wrong, but it was a competent CO to make sure that the aviators under his command weren't unduly exposed to radiation.

Skates grinned widely up at Harm. "Well…that's a relief. At least I won't be giving birth to babies with three eyes and two heads." A bit of macabre humor, but well, when one was back from a mission like that, there was bound to be some off-color joking.

Harm just shook his head. "Yeah…OK…Skates."

"Shake a leg." Animal interrupted. "Evidently RDML Webster wants to see us." He was now dressed in shipboard khakis with the customary two stars on his collars and naval aviator's wings as well as a Mighty Ike ballcap with admiral's scrambled eggs on the brim. The two-stars looked intimidating and sailors scrambled to get out of the way as Animal led the way across the knee-knockers and up the stairs to the flag bridge. Over his shoulder he said. "So…you got Sadik's truck, hey?"

"Looks like it, sir." Harm replied.

"…and the Adders got the missile truck."

"Well, sir, you got the truck in the lead to stop…so I could potshot him."

By this time they were at the flag bridge and Animal knocked on the door. "Enter!" RDML Webster's voice was a rumbling basso. Animal stepped in and RDML Webster was on his feet bracing, "SIR!"

"As you were, Admiral." Animal stated as he extended a hand to shake the Rear Admiral Lower Half's. "Sorry it took us a while, but we had to check and make sure we weren't glowing."

"Admiral, I hope you don't mind," RDML Webster said. "But I took it upon myself to fill out award decorations for your three subordinates for the demonstration of their valor." Animal nodded. Normally it would be in his purview to do so, but the fact that he was flying the mission didn't allow for that. He'd commend RDML Webster on his foresight.

"Thank you for doing so…" Animal acknowledged.

"Commander Harmon Rabb Jr. front and center. For events today over Tobruk, Libya in thwarting a potentially devastating attack on the United States of America, you are hereby awarded the second award of the Distinguished Flying Cross. Today America thanks you for their lives, Commander." RDML Webster stepped forward and presented Harm with the medal. Skates stepped up and gave Harm a kiss on the cheek as per the customary reward.

…and each person, Skates and Scooter with the exception of Animal who just stood to the side and smiled, received the Distinguished Flying Cross. As an Admiral it was assumed that Animal would lead. At least that pretty much was what was expected by his superiors. Harm reciprocated the kiss on the cheek to Skates as she accepted her award.

After the award to Scooter, RDML Webster debriefed them on the mission, and made certain that the CNO would hear about it and mentioned that quarters were made available to them and they made their way to their quarters to get some rest. While on the way there, Animal stopped by at a bank of telephones dropped some cash in and waited for the dial tone then entered in a telephone number. Listening for the ring, "Nakamura residence…" a soft voice answered.

"Hey…it's me…"

"Sweetheart…" a soft gasp sounded on the other end of the line. "Does that mean that you're coming home?"

"Yeah…we got the sonofabitch…Michael awake?" he asked.

"Darling, it's ten in the morning, he's been up for hours. He should go down for his nap shortly though." His wife replied.

"I'm just holding for orders, love, then we may either stick with the Ike depending on what they're doing and if they're not returning to Norfolk, then we'll refuel the F/A-18Fs and pond-hop our way home." Animal grinned.

"Let me know what you're doing then I'll meet you at Oceana." His wife replied. "If I have to I'll bang out, the CO'll let me if he knows my husband's coming home. Otherwise he knows I'll get wicked pissed."

"Love you…" Animal said softly.

"You know I love you…too…" she said softly in his ear.

"Gotta go, gotta get some rest." He said.

"Think of me…lover…" she whispered. "sleep tight."

Animal grinned as he replaced the phone on its cradle as the dial-tone sounded in his ear.

_**USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, Somewhere in the Mediterranean, 0100hrs Libya Time**_

"So did you get a hold of your wife?" Harm grinned as he watched Animal look through his wallet pics with a wistful expression.

"Yeah…she was just dealing with Mikey." Animal ran his hand through his hair. "He's at his terrible twos."

Harm nodded. Animal's wife had gone staff and was parlaying her career into a good solid one as an NAVSEA Chief of Staff in Naval Systems Command. She had achieved O-6 and was making a good case for RDML. Her CO VADM Bill Templeton was a good solid CO formerly a Navy Surface Warfare type and it made for a good working atmosphere.

"So she ever still manages to get her feet wet?" Harm asked.

"Not often. And frankly lately it seems the only time she ever gets _feet wet_ is at the community pool when she takes Mikey for swimming lessons."

Skates knocked on the door. "Yeah…Harm, Sir?" she acknowledged Animal. "Ops says that orders came through, we're to pond-hop all the way home, sir."

"Perfect. I'll have to let her know, when we reach London. What time are we due on deck?" Animal turned to Skates.

"0400hrs, sir. Hornets are being readied now."

"All right. Kick Scooter out of bed…Harm, we brief at 0230hrs." Animal decided as he looked at the clock. "We're on deck and ready to launch at 0400hrs." He grabbed his gear and headed out the door. "On my way to ops to file our flight plans."

"OK…" Harm replied as he unwound himself from the bunk and got up getting ready to go knock on Scooter's door.

"Hey Scooter!"

"Wuh?" was Scooter's semi-comatose response to Harm's knocking.

"Shake a leg…preflight briefing's at 0230 hrs. We're hopping to Rota, then over to London, then pond-hopping all the way back to Oceana."

_**USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, Somewhere in the Mediterranean, 0400hrs**_

"Black Lion 206, Cat One. Engines spooled at 100%. Reheat military power." Animal gave the plane captain a thumbs up and a salute and waited for the punch in the back that would throw him off the pointy end of the boat. The cat-shot was a good one and he was flying off the end of the boat at over 250knots. Harm was launched off the Ike about six seconds later and he was on their wing as they pointed their way towards Rota, it was pretty much a straight shot. Straight forward flight enough as they landed two hours and thirty six minutes later on Runway 28 at to the gape-eyed stares of Zoomie loadmasters. They needed to refuel then turn around and head for NAS Keflavik where they would land at 1032hrs after refuelling at Rota. Then they had to sit another two hours and eat over at Keflavik's passenger terminal again. At this point Animal walked over to the phone and called his wife and told her that they were enroute home and that they would hit Halifax International Airport on the way home, get refuelled and be at Oceana at about 1500hrs. Wheels up at Keflavik was at 1232hrs Iceland time which brought them onto North American soil at 1138hrs EST after which with another two hour refuelling enabled them to touch wheels down on NAS Oceana at just after 1500hrs EST.

_It seemed as though we were racing the sun through the sky_, Animal thought as he unbuckled and pulled off his helmet feeling the wind through sweaty hair. Looking over at the building where the door opened he saw his wife and his child standing there. His Mikey was standing there as grave as could be holding up his right hand in a child's approximation of a salute. Animal grinned widely and saluted him. Harm, Scooter and Skates came up behind him as he grabbed his red-haired wife in a big hug. "I'm back, sweetheart."

"You're lucky you called…when you were in Iceland. I've never had a sweeter oh-six hundred wakeup." She whispered in his ear as she pulled back enough to look at him then put her lips to his in a kiss.

"Are you looking for someone?" a familiar voice hailed Harm who looked around behind Animal's wife and saw Catherine who smiled at him before she launched herself at him wrapping her arms around his neck. "Thank God, you're back…Harm, safe and sound…" she whispered as tears spilled from her eyes. "I'm sorry, I cry at the drop of a hat. Damned hormones."

Harm was absolutely surprised. He had called Catherine from Rota, but he hadn't known that she would make the trip all the way from Langley. It was a wonderful surprise to see her. "I'm glad you came down…" he said as he enfolded her with a hug. In the meantime Skates and Scooter made themselves scarce inspecting the walls of the VF-213 squadron building.

Harm separated from Catherine for a brief moment to find Animal and his wife still kissing. "Hey, Irish…Animal…" Harm said using Animal's wife's callsign for a brief moment. "If you two are finished sucking each other's faces off…" that caused Irish to casually free one hand and aim a middle finger at him.

Scooter playfully greeted Animal's son. "Hey, sport, you didn't see Mommy do that."


	7. Chapter 7

_**Jeneral2885:**__ Yep…had to give Skates the DFC…after flying in Harm's F/A-18F and getting the __**you know what**__ scared out of her…she deserves it._

_**jpstar57:**__Given the choice between allowing Sadik the chance to launch the SS-25 with 600,000 deaths resulting or removing the threat, well, Webb didn't have a chance. But even so, it was better that the RAF guys took out the missile threat, rather than our boys. But it's still going to affect both Harm and Animal. Mac's not going to be happy either at losing Webb in such a grisly fashion. _

* * *

_**NAS Oceana, Virginia Beach, VA 1540hrs**_

Scooter picked up Mikey who squealed joyfully at his "Unca Jimmy" and threw his arms around the big Naval Flight Officer. "Mommy"…he said.

"Yeah. Mommy made a hand sign, you don't wanna do for many years to come, squirt." Harm was laughing uproariously as Scooter said that to the little toddler who nodded gravely. Skates was shaking her head wondering how she ended up with a group of nutcases.

"Are you through telling my child what a bad girl Mommy is?" Maegyn said archly as she slipped her left arm around Animal's waist. "Scooter?" Scooter looked over at Animal who grinned widely. Maegyn hadn't lost her edge despite having become a mother and she still looked at her beloved fast jets with a gleam in her eye even though she wasn't able to fly any more. She was pushing up on the flag rank and flag officers didn't fly any longer unless they were assigned to command NSAWC and then only for evaluation purposes on curriculum.

"I think so…" Scooter responded with an unrepentant smile as he put Mikey down, resisting Mikey's protestations of _up-up _and taking him by the hand as they walked through the building looking for operations.

_**Director CIA's Office, CIA Headquarters, Langley, VA, 1540hrs**_

"Norm, we've got a Presidential directive telling us that we need to go into the site and clean up the debris." Kershaw notified the Director who nodded. "DoE needs to send a NEST team in to clean up and secure the site before nuclear materials get removed."

"DoE got notified, Harrison." Director Watts indicated as he showed Kershaw the letter from the Department of Energy to the CIA. "They left from Andrews two hours ago along with a battalion of US Army troops via six C-5s and are enroute now. You don't want to know just how much of a nightmare that it'll be if the Libyans get a hold of fissionable materials. As much as Gaddafi cooperated with us on this matter, I don't want to think about Gaddafi and his cronies getting a hold of materials that could be used to create a WMD."

Kershaw paled at the thought. Gaddafi had always been a thorn in the side of the United States Government and it had been a surprise that Gaddafi had cooperated, but could it have been that Gaddafi wanted the nuclear materials? Was the President going to have to send a battlegroup in? A battlegroup could inflame tensions in the area, but how was he going to secure the materials with potentially the Revolutionary Guard Corps surrounding the area or was Gaddafi going to be cooperative with allowing the materials to be cleaned up, removed from the area and the site sanitized. "So who's protecting the C-5s?"

"The USS Eisenhower will be sending in a squadron of F/A-18s along with the C-5s as soon as they rendezvous overhead with the Eisenhower and the Hornets will escort them into Libyan airspace to the point of landing at Tobruk Airport. From there, the troops and NEST team will convoy to the contaminated site and commence removal of the materials." Dir. Watts indicated. "At least that's what I've been briefed by Brigadier General Stanford of the 20th CBRNE (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosive) Command, The 192d stationed at Fort Bragg flew in two days ago to Andrews AFB in preparation for the attack on the missile and subsequent deployment of their unit to the affected site."

"I hope that works, because the last thing we need is a firefight going on at the site and no way to get them out." Kershaw replied.

_**NAS Oceana, Virginia Beach, VA, 1610hrs**_

After signing their aircraft back to the squadrons from where they came, the group went out to the parking lot. "Sir! It was a pleasure flying with you." Skates said as she braced and saluted Animal. Animal saluted Skates back.

"Congratulations, Skates on the DFC." Animal grinned back at her.

"With all due respect, sir. I'm going to go head back to my rack after hitting the showers and grabbing a bite to eat at the mess."

"Dismissed, Lieutenant Commander." Animal nodded. He understood all too well how quickly the fatigue would hit and he wanted to be home before it did." Scooter also excused himself for the very same reason. Harm turned to Animal as Animal grinned at him and said. "Well, I guess we did it, shipmate."

"That we did, shipmate." Harm looked startled as Catherine looped her arm around his waist. He was surprised that Catherine would initiate such an intimate gesture especially in the company of people that she wasn't familiar with.

"Saved the world again, Hammer." Animal looked up at the sky, complaining. "I'm getting too fucking old for this."

"You're only as old as you feel, sir."

"Right now my bones tell me that I'm eighty-five." Surely he didn't feel like this, this morning when he strapped on that Super Hornet. "Well, I'm heading home with my wife and son. You take care, Hammer."

"Aye that!" Harm replied enthusiastically. "Back to JAG tomorrow." He called as he saw Animal nod head towards his car with Irish and Mikey in tow.

Animal tossed back over his shoulder. "If Mac says something to you about us not rescuing Webb, just let me know. In the meantime tell her it was my decision not to rescue him. She already knows the reasons why and she doesn't need to bust your chops over it."

Harm nodded quietly understanding that Animal was still playing the role of his flight leader, the duty of him being to protect his wingmen. He and Catherine watched Animal get his family into the car and drive off.

Catherine sighed softly, "He's a good man, isn't he?" as she contemplated the retreating back of Animal's car as it left the Oceana parking lot.

"The best, he and I flew through some of the hottest dogfights of the Gulf War. He never let me down, nor have I ever let him down. That's why we call each other _shipmate_." Harm had a faraway look in his eyes. "That's how come I'd fly with him to hell and back and I don't say that about a lot of people. He and his wife are two of the best fighter pilots I've ever seen; Instinctive sticks and consummate airmen. Same with CAG and Keeter though he's now with you guys; they were topnotch F-14 aviators just like Animal and Irish." He asserted. "I've had the privilege of flying with some damned good naval aviators."

"Let's go home." Catherine said, thinking in the back of her mind just what Harm would say if he knew just how much time Catherine had been spending at his place. Harm looked at her for a long moment as he tried to digest just exactly what Catherine meant by _home_.

_**North of Union Station, Washington DC 1940hrs**_

Harm looked on in amazement as Catherine took out her keys from her purse and slipped the _spare key_ into the doorknob. Catherine had pulled up just behind him as he had parked waving away his inquiring look until they had managed to ride up in that shaky freight elevator of his. She just held onto him quietly, the newness of the close intimate gesture making him wonder at this new side of Catherine. When she opened the door and ushered him into his own apartment, his jaw dropped open at Catherine's briefcase by his couch and a closed laptop on his coffee-table and he turned for a moment to Catherine who explained. "I hope you don't mind. I was lonely and couldn't sleep…so I stayed in your place." She said hoping that Harm wouldn't take offence at her presumptuous move.

"No…not at all, I don't mind at all…" Harm replied, his thoughts whirling at the revelation.

She stepped firmly into his embrace, leaned up and kissed him. "I'm not normally this clingy. I'm usually a hell of a lot stronger emotionally than this. I don't know why." She looked confused. "But for some reason, chalk it up to hormones or something, I needed to feel your presence and the only thing I could rationalize doing was moving into your place, while you were off flying." The cuteness of her pout brought out the mischievousness of Harm and he grinned.

"Well…so when do you move the rest of your stuff in?" he asked.

"Maybe tomorrow? Would tomorrow be all right?" Catherine grinned turning the joke back around on him.

"Sure…I can ask Admiral Chegwidden if I can take the day off tomorrow and start hauling your stuff from your place to here. I think we can get it done in a day. Then we can grab a bite to eat…are you in preference of anything in particular because I was planning on Chinese…" He went off on a long soliloquy of the things that they needed to do and Catherine's eyes grew wider and wider.

"Harm…" Catherine began, "I was just joking…uh…" she stammered. "I…mean…it was presumptuous of me to bring my stuff in here…"

"Catherine…" Harm said "I don't mind at all. Sit down with me." He gestured to the couch. "While I was flying, I was thinking." His face took on a grave expression. "I realized that if I bought it while on this mission, there'd be no one other than my mother and step-dad to mourn my loss." He snorted bitterly, "Maybe that was a good thing…but I realized just how much I was missing."

"So…you're not wanting a relationship with me because you get an instant family and gratification out of it?" Catherine asked. "It's something deeper?" she prompted.

"It's because I realized that the only thing that went through my mind while we were waiting on the go for the mission, was getting out of the situation that we were in, alive. The only reason why we were able to was because we came up on them without them knowing. We surprised them. They didn't get a chance to use their anti-aircraft defenses." He paused for a long moment. "We surprised them and took them out in one attack. I had no time to be scared, I just reacted." He paused. "I wanted nothing more than to come back alive, because of you. Because when it all boiled down to it, you were the most important thing in my life." He looked at Catherine, fearful, wary of her reaction to his disclosure, but he didn't need to worry. Catherine was in his arms, her head tilted up to him, her lips inviting a tender kiss.

"Harm…kiss me…" she whispered softly.

As they broke apart for air, she whispered. "Mac certainly isn't going to like this new development."

"I could care less about Mac's opinion." Harm said fervently, tired of Mac's attempts to yank his chain and play tetherball with his heart and he was snapping the string. "I'm committed entirely to you."

"Oh…good." Catherine replied as she grinned at him. "So…when we getting some dinner?" she asked defusing the tension in the room.

_**Animal &amp; Maegyn's home, 511 Brackenridge Avenue, Norfolk VA, 1940hrs**_

"So, how'd you and Harm do?"

"Unfortunately the info's classified. Can't discuss it." Animal said "Other than the fact that we came home alive."

"I hope to hell the guy who got you guys into the mess isn't around any more or I'm going to skin the bastard alive." Maegyn snarled heatedly, her Boston Irish temper getting the best of her. "Isn't the guy that got you into this mess the same guy that got Mac down to Paraguay and nearly killed her? And she then turned around and started dating him? Was she absolutely mental in the head?"

Animal couldn't tell his wife that he had to make the tough decision to allow the RAF to bomb the missile truck that was carrying Webb. Sadik had forced his hand and it was the cold decision to either allow the SEALs to take out Sadik and risk the missile being launched, gambling six hundred thousand lives in the process or take the missile truck out and sacrificing Webb at the same time – it was no easy decision. But as a famous movie saying went – _the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few_…_or the one_ as this particular scenario went.

Would he be able to sleep at night knowing that his decision sent one man to a horrifying death? He sat for a long moment contemplating that and came to the decision that if he had to he would do it all over again. The rationalization of his action was that he, himself, had sent many men to their deaths, his role was that of a military commander, that he ordered his men on alpha strikes, consequently some of them didn't return. Some of his men died in operational accidents, but they were all his responsibility, but they were a Navy at war. Men were fighting in Afghanistan and in Iraq and many of those men wouldn't come home in anything other than a body-bag.

Webb was warned that his job was dangerous, to watch the contacts that he made and to ensure that the contacts that he made were legitimate. If anything Webb had slipped up, made a mistake at the airport at Cairo and ended up paying the consequences.

It was _compartmentalize and continue on_, one had to in the business of war-fighting. He still had a job to do and as Commander, Naval Air Forces, Atlantic Fleet (COMNAVAIRLANT) he had to make sure that he did the job well or he'd be replaced. Animal looked over at his wife. "Well, I have a feeling that won't be much of a problem any longer." Opting to let the news come out when it was supposed to, not through his lips.

Given that Maegyn knew about operational security, she knew when Animal couldn't talk about things so she didn't ask, but she knew that something happened on the mission that affected her husband deeply and as his wife, she was concerned.

_**JAG HQ, Falls Church, VA 0700hrs**_

Harm stepped through the office to RADM AJ Chegwidden's office. Knocking on the door, hearing the requisite "ENTER" bellow from AJ, he grinned and opened the door.

"What the hell are you doing here?" AJ growled, eyeing Harm with a frown. "I thought you needed a personal day?"

"Well, sir. I just needed to update my NAVPERS 1070/602 Page 2. Sir."

AJ's mouth dropped open; this was a bombshell of the highest magnitude and that bastard Rabb had too big of a grin on his face – _damned that sonofabitch, he's given me white hairs out of the few that I have left on my head, but none like this…before_. "Since when has there been a change in your personal life?" AJ snapped out. "I thought you were single, Commander!"

"Well, sir. If you recall the Angelshark case…sir. Well, it just so happened…that I…um…sir…"

"Spit it out, Rabb!"

"Well, sir, just before Paraguay, we, meaning Catherine Gale and I, decided to get married."

"WHAT!?" AJ roared as Harm winced at the volume. "YOU…and the CIA's Attorney?!" AJ rubbed his hand across his bare scalp as he snarled this. "COATES!" he bellowed not utilizing the phone then saying quietly and ominously "And was this a formalized marriage or was this some common-law thing. Because if you recall, Commander Rabb, that the state of Virginia does not recognize common-law marriage. If the latter was the case, I suggest you two formalize it immediately at the justice of the peace. I will await your formal marriage certificate before submitting the amended Page 2s to BuPERS."

Legalman Two Coates was at the door inside of 5 seconds. "Sir?"

"Coates, would you get me Commander Rabb's NAVPERS 1070/602? A glass of water and a couple Tylenol, thank you." AJ growled in a less strident voice. Harm restrained a grin. AJ was taking this a bit better than he thought. Legalman Two Coates was back in the office with the folder, a glass of water and two Tylenol tablets inside of three minutes. "Thank you, Coates." Handing the folder to Harm he growled. "You go with Legalman Two Coates and get your personnel record changed and then ask Coates to bring the file to me. After you are done updating your Page 2, you can secure and leave. I'm sure that you don't want the majority of your personal day taken up by paperwork."

As he walked to his office, Harm noticed that Mac's office was still dark. That concerned him as Mac usually was punctual in her arrival at the JAG office, but he shrugged his shoulders and went to his office. As he entered the office, the door shut behind him without him having touched anything. Whirling around he saw Mac shuttered behind the door, now fully in his view. She looked haunted.

"He's dead, isn't he?" she asked, her voice hollow.

"The mission's classified, Mac, you know I can't say anything." Harm replied sensing that she was distraught.

"Goddamnit, Harm, I need to know! Who killed Webb? Was it you? Was it the Admiral? Which one of you pulled the trigger?"

"Dammit, Mac." Harm frustratedly shouted. "No, I didn't pull the trigger, neither did the admiral…we both went after Sadik…the RAF guys got the missile truck. Are you fucking satisfied?" He slammed his fist on the desk.

"Why?!" Mac yelled back, "Didn't you have the guts to do it? After all that, you got the Royal Air Force to do your dirty work?"

Harm growled ominously in his voice. "I'd suggest you recant that statement, Mac." His voice was low and threatening, a voice he'd never used at Mac before. "If I had to, I would have put a JDAM right down the centerline of that missile truck. So would the admiral. It was either six hundred thousand people in Washington DC or Webb. It just so happened that events didn't allow us to take out the missile truck and the RAF did the job instead. Don't ever question my motivation again."

"You cold-hearted bastard…" Mac snarled. "Webb had every right to come home…"

"…and you'd trade six hundred thousand lives to bring him home?" Harm's voice was even colder. "You'd allow Sadik to blow up Washington DC so you could have Webb?"

"JUST WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!? I thought I told you to update your personnel records to record your spouse? Rabb! And what the hell are you doing in Rabb's office? Lieutenant Colonel!" AJ thundered as he threw open the door. "Come see me when you're done in here, Lieutenant Colonel!" he growled as he turned around and headed back to his office.

Mac paled as she heard AJ mention something about a spouse and as she watched AJ depart she snarled. "So now making the _playing house_ official?"

"Something I should have done before Paraguay." Harm snapped back.

"So where's your _wife_? I thought she'd be with you to sign her signature on the Form 2." Mac sniped knowing full well the Part II didn't require a signature.

"I'm right here…" a voice from the door said as Mac whirled around. "Did you need my signature?"

"Good timing, Catherine." Harm replied, smirking as Mac's color rose and it seemed as though steam was starting to come out of her ears. "I'm just in the process of filling out the form. I should be done in a minute."

"I need to have you fill this in too…darling." Catherine said, smirking at Mac, while handing a form to Harm, "It's my _Dependent Verification Form_ that I need to submit to Kershaw. Oh, he's going to love this." She grinned as Harm returned her smile. Mac on the other hand was getting even angrier.

"Did you have something else to discuss, Lieutenant Colonel? Harm asked, his tone dismissive.

Mac snarled something unintelligible and headed for the admiral's office.

"I think she's annoyed." Catherine stated the obvious. Harm coughed into his sleeve to disguise a laugh. "By the way, on the way home, can we stop by Langley; I want to give Kershaw a myocardial infarction with this Dependent Verification Form." Harm burst out laughing.

By the time Mac came out of AJ's office pale, white and shaking with a newly inserted Letter of Reprimand in her personnel record, Harm and Catherine were long gone.

_**Animal's Office, COMNAVAIRLANT, NAS Norfolk, Norfolk, VA, 0730hrs**_

"Elias. CARSTRKGRU 3, need their files." Animal barked while picking up a telephone to phone RDML Davis.

"Rear Admiral Davis." The CarStrkGru3 commander answered the phone on the third ring.

"Jeff, I need your aircrew guys on a three month turnaround schedule." Animal stated knowing internally that Jeffrey Davis wasn't going to like this. "We've got some major shit happening out in the Mediterranean and Ike has been on station for four months. I need you guys to start getting your guys ready because I'm sending you out in three months. I'm going to have to extend Ike for one more month before they come back. You guys are going out for a seven too. You'll be taking the full battle group, DESRON21 and all the CGs as well. You guys are going out to Libya for coverage."

"I know, sir, VADM Kennedy let us know that a week ago, since you were away. I've told our air wing commander and squadron commanders that they need to make sure that they're ready for deployment."

"Good work, Jeffrey. I'll be dropping in on the squadrons to make sure that they're all up to snuff."

Getting off the phone with COMCARSTRKGRU 3, he looked over some more files and then gathered up his files and put them in his desk, grabbing his ballcap from his desk, he walked out into the office bullpen. "Chief Trebalos, I'm going to take a walk and go talk to some of our guys. I'll be back at about 1400hrs."

"Aye, sir." Animal grinned at Trebalos' response, pushed open the door to his office, and headed down the hallway of the nice red brick building and headed out the main front doors into the nice sunny morning. Grabbing sight of his vehicle he grinned. _Time to surprise some of the squadrons down at the flightline._


	8. Chapter 8

**Byrhthelm:** _…is there any possibility of you turning your attention to the tale and completing it? Sure... you could leave it as is... but somehow it just doesn't seem 'finished' to me. But maybe that's just me..._ – AN: will try to do so. It however may take some time as this particular muse doesn't seem to want to cooperate in any way shape or form. Will have to drag it kicking and screaming to the computer and beat it into submission.

**To all readers**: _I apologize for the lateness of this update; however, my son just made rep hockey A2 (last pool tryouts) with his city hockey association and my family has to come first over fanfic-writing. He and the rest of my family are my focus mainly and fanfic writing is but a pleasant aside to my regular tasks of sports and nature photography. _

_**In a cave within the Takht-e-Sulaiman, Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa, Pakistan Three days later**_

Ahmad Aziz Khoroushi was a patient man but Mahmud Said Fahd had tested his patience immensely, advocating for an attack against Americans on American soil to avenge his brother's death. Yes, the Americans needed to be punished for their actions against their people, but the time was not right for such an action. Actions involving acts of violence as prescribed under the Quran. "Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers, for that they joined companions with Allah, for which He had sent no authority" Khoroushi looked over at Fahd. Fahd's face was contorted in self-righteous anger which clearly read – Those who did this to my brother shall pay with their blood and the blood of all those connected with them.

Khoroushi looked at Fahd whose stony countenance spoke of deep-seeded pain…and loss "Peace…we shall strike at the time that Allah deems it worthy; when He feels that we can strike the hardest. And they will see that their twin towers destruction was not the worst punishment that Allah could mete out to them. Then we shall have justice for Sadik."

Abd al-Rashid Tamid Ali, one of the men who wielded a captured RPKS-74 machine gun captured during the 80s, nodded at Khoroushi's statement. He was Khoroushi's second-in-command. When Ahmad Khoroushi had heard of Sadik Fahd's death, he'd consolidated his leadership to those whom he'd trusted and the rest of Al Qaeda had fallen in line. Khoroushi had his detractors however and they were constantly breaking off and forming new short-lived revolutionary organizations, however they always came crawling back to the fold, Ali thought to himself. Ali was Al Almufawid – the Negotiator for Al Qaeda and was the one that Khoroushi turned to in order to bring new revolutionaries into the fold and he referred to himself as a revolutionary, not what the infidels referred to him as: a terrorist – one that wrought terror throughout the Middle East and beyond.

Some did not agree with Khoroushi's sit back and wait for the opportune moment to strike. They were the ones that felt that the terror inflicted on the infidels should be continuous in the Western World, that constant attacks were necessary to provide the right amount of retribution for the acts committed against them throughout the decades. There were times when he felt that Khoroushi was too cautious, however, Ali had seen the full might of the United States Navy, Air Force and Marine air units arrayed against them in Afghanistan and he had been a young boy; a mujahid, when the Russians had invaded Afghanistan in December of 1979 and he knew the discretion that Khoroushi displayed with picking and choosing attacks, versus all out war against an enemy that they had no hope of winning against in open combat. Al Qaeda did not have the weapons of war that the Shaytân-e Bozorg – Great Satan had. Ali knew this all too well and agreed with the hit and run attacks that Khoroushi adopted. It had worked well enough when the backwards Asians of a little country in the Far East had used them against the great American military and had fought them to the point where a assumed foregone conclusion of victory became stalemate and eventually defeat for the vaunted United States. It was a tactic that Ali took to heart and taught it to those who would join their revolutionary forces.

"So we will wait until my brother's memory is cold?" Mahmud Fahd spat venomously.

Ali hefted his machine gun and narrowed his eyes at Fahd. "Tread very carefully, Mahmud." He hissed at Fahd, slowly uncoiling from his mat on which he was sitting, the threat contained in his brief adjustment of his seated position not lost on the younger mujahid who promptly shut his mouth.

Khoroushi looked over at the young upstart. Perhaps it was time to send this little one on his way. Perhaps he could make use of him in a manner befitting his late brother who Khoroushi felt was too violent and willing to take the attack to the enemy; and the infidels had targeted and eliminated him. Perhaps this task will give him patience. Allow him to plan out an attack, send him to Syria with their friends and allies within the Syrian community and allow him to ferment discontent with the Syrian government regime against the rule of Bashar al-Assad who had been in power for the past three years. Fahd would either learn patience, tact and strategy or he would die. Either way would suit Khoroushi's plans. To have a subordinate chomping at the bit would foster factions and he would end up either deposed and excommunicated or killed and Khoroushi planned to hold on to his power for a lot longer than Sadik Fahd.

_**Animal's Office, COMNAVAIRLANT, NAS Norfolk, Norfolk, VA, 1200hrs**_

The phone rang in his office and Animal growled, "COMNAVAIRLANT!" into the receiver as he gave it a glare. Unfortunately the phone didn't melt and he heard the voice of Director, Office of Naval Intelligence, Vice Admiral Leanna McMahon, utter. "Sorry to bother you, RADM."

Animal immediately winced, "No, ma'am. Not a bother at all. What can I do for you, ma'am."

"We need to go over intel that we've received. Can you make it into my office, sometime within the next two hours?"

"It's a three hour and a half drive, ma'am." Animal indicated that he wouldn't be able to reach the ONI Director in that amount of time.

"I'll send a helo. Be ready by 1300. We'll hold the meeting for you." Was VADM McMahon's response.

"Yes, Ma'am."

"…and your wingman that you did the last mission with, I need to see him here too. I'm sending a car to get him too; at least he can get there in 46 minutes." That tipped Animal off right away to the fact that ONI was involved with the mission.

"Yes, ma'am." VADM McMahon's voice was brusque and did not give any clue as to why she was calling. Animal knew that wasn't a good sign.

_**Harm's Apartment North of Union Station, Washington DC 1220hrs**_

Catherine Gale answered her ringing cell-phone. "Catherine." Director Kershaw asked, his voice inquisitive. "Something's come up…"

"What now?" Catherine asked.

"I can't talk about it here on an unsecured line. I need you to come into the office." Kershaw's urgent tone galvanized Catherine to alertness. Something had gone wrong, seriously wrong for Kershaw to use a tone like that.

"Be there in thirty five." Catherine replied. Her car was parked in the alley, a rather dangerous section of DC to be sure, but Kershaw had managed to finagle a concealed weapons permit to allow her to carry despite her status as an OGC Lawyer. Suitably dressed, she grabbed her purse from the kitchen table, locked the door on her way out and headed down to the vehicle.

As communicated to Kershaw, it did only take a half hour to reach the CIA Headquarters. Parking her car and walking into the building flashing her ID badge, she headed for the elevator to Harrison Kershaw's office. Reaching the office she tapped on the door.

"Come on in…" Kershaw's gruff voice emanated from his office. Catherine Gale stepped into the office and Kershaw motioned to her to sit down. "You are aware of the fact that we had to utilize Commander Rabb and RADM Nakamura to deal with the threat presented by Sadik Fahd. The threat happened to be a SS-21 intercontinental ballistic missile and a launcher capable of hitting Washington DC. The mission went off without a hitch, however, we have lost communication with the agent in charge of the operation. Webb was compromised and I have no doubt that he is dead."

Catherine nodded; she knew that Clayton Webb's missions always involved a JAG staff-member or two and that his missions always tended to go sideways. But somehow he'd always managed to get out of the situation, sometimes worse for wear, but always alive.

"I was informed by the RADM in charge of the Navy contingent that flew over to the Arab Peninsula that Webb was captured by Al Qaeda and was in the missile launcher vehicle at the time that the Navy contingent and their Royal Air Force allies hit the missile launcher and destroyed it." Kershaw said, soberly, scratching his chin in deep thought. "We have not had communication with Webb at all, so I have no doubt in my mind that Webb didn't make it out of the operation."

Catherine remained silent as she pondered what Webb's last moments would have been like; possibly handcuffed to the vehicle itself, knowing that there was an attack enroute to obliterate the missile launcher and knowing that the minutes that he sat within the vehicle were ticking down to the last seconds on earth; his last moments pain-filled surrounded by fire, his body ripped apart by explosions.

"Looks like we have yet another Intelligence Star going up on the wall." Kershaw commented sombrely knowing that despite Webb's detractors, Webb had earned that star on the wall. With all of Webb's screw-ups, this one was the one that did him in, but he'd set it up that the mission had gotten accomplished. However Kershaw knew that the war against Al Qaeda was not over, not by a long shot and unless they were vigilant, more attacks were in the works, and Lord help them, Al Qaeda had expressed their interest in going nuclear, thus upping the ante. Would they go after new nuclear warheads mated to ICBMs to target US cities in hellfire? Or would they resort to dirty nukes or conventional bombs? Would they threaten airports and turn shopping malls into shooting galleries? That was the frightening aspect of unconventional warfare in the early turn of the century in the second millennia. There was no way of seeing the enemy on a battlefield as in the old days. The enemy were too adept at concealment and evasion. And the chaos that such war wrought played havoc with the security of the nation. "We need to meet over at the ONI" he said looking at Catherine. "Right now, VADM McMahon is meeting with the two aviators who went on the mission. We need feet on the ground in Saudi Arabia right now and RADM Nakamura and Commander Rabb are the only two who have been there recently. I'm also sending in Jack Keeter and Beth O'Neill, they'll be able to scout out the currents."

"Are you sure that they'll be able to determine who's asking who for what?"

Kershaw nodded. "If we don't get a handle on who's selling the weapons out of Russia's stockpiles, we won't know where to stop up the leaks. The SS-21 that we eliminated is only a symptom of the greater problem of missiles and warheads going missing and if we don't know where they're coming from, we're going to see a mushroom cloud over DC or Los Angeles." He dropped several files into his briefcase. "We're going to take a helicopter ride over to NRI." He said briefly as he stood up, grabbing his briefcase and motioning Catherine to follow.

**_Office of Naval Investigation, National Maritime Intelligence Center, Suitland, Maryland 1510hrs_**

Animal was ushered into a dark oak-lined room by an ONI agent. Sitting at an oak table was Harm who had a cup of coffee in front of him. Animal nodded quietly to his friend. "They got you too?" he asked.

"Yeah…I think the secret squirrels want to pick our brains as to what we know." Harm replied with a sober face. He shook his head. "I had to get a continuance on a court case because they wanted me here to spill my guts."

Animal snorted with derisive laughter. "Considering how much we were mushroomed from the get-go, are they serious? I have no idea other than what I saw with my eyes overflying that monstrosity they were going to lob over at us. So what do they want…me to say: _Yup…saw it_."

"If they wanted to know what was going on, why didn't they call in our GIBs?" Harm asked.

Animal shrugged his shoulders. He had no clue either. "But something tells me that they didn't invite us here for milk n' cookies and a friendly afternoon chat." And Harm figured that Animal had quite a prescient mind as the look on VADM McMahon's face was anything but cheerful when she and an aide walked in. "Well…well…good afternoon, gentlemen."

"Ma'am." They both stood at attention.

"It seems as though the CIA is interested in what you have to say about what went on." VADM McMahon intoned, her mood solemn and her countenance grave. "They should be here in about ten minutes. So how about we discuss your participation in these events that culminated in the destruction of a SS-21 targeted at Washington DC and the death of a CIA agent? Shall we?"

"Would you recommend that I get a JAG? Ma'am." Harm asked quietly.

"No…we're not here to castigate you." VADM McMahon sighed, as she rested her elbow on the table. , "We've been monitoring Sadik Fahd recently and mainly for connections to terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda. We wanted to know his fellow terrorist connections, his sellers and what he's buying and the simple fact that an airstrike was able to eliminate him left us at loose ends."

"With all due respect, ma'am." Animal growled, "That's beyond our respective paygrades. The secret squirrels have that information all tied up and I don't think they'd be willing to let go of it."

VADM McMahon raised an eyebrow, responding tartly "Admiral, I'm well aware of that. I understand that kind of information is not within your purview, however, if there was anything you heard or saw while on the mission, ONI would like to hear about it."

"Other than the fact that Sadik Fahd wanted to turn Washington DC into radioactive rubble?"

"…perhaps."

Animal pointedly looked at her, "Ma'am, it was kind of hard to note anything of consequence at six hundred knots air-speed over the target area other than the target that we were acquiring: which happened to be a truck." That silenced most of the questions from the vice-admiral. "I have no idea who was in the truck, other than they got roundly toasted – I presume…they became _crispy critters_…" He jokingly commented. VADM McMahon did not look amused.

"I see…" A knock on the door interrupted the vice-admiral's train of thought and her response to Animal's statement. Her perfunctory "Enter!" caused the door to open and Harm looked over to see Catherine with Harrison Kershaw, the CIA's DDCIA. Animal looked over at Harm with a question in his eyes. Harm shrugged his shoulders – he had absolutely no idea.

"Good afternoon, Admirals, Commander." Harrison Kershaw stated as he gazed around the room, taking in little details and storing them away for future reference. He turned and shut the door and then proceeded to pull out a chair and sit down; as did Catherine to the right of Harm.

Harm looked at Animal with a worried expression on his face. The look on Kershaw's face was inscrutable; Harm couldn't read him one way or the other. Vice Admiral McMahon's countenance was irritated. Considering Animal looked annoyed, he was not certain how well this whole interview or debrief would go for the two of them.

Kershaw took a deep breath as he looked over at the two naval aviators in service dress blues who matched him stare for stare.

"Viper flight was over the ground target at 1502 hrs." Animal snapped out irritated and giving Kershaw a scathing look. "At that point I radioed confirmed visual on target at my one o'clock ground. Commander Rabb, Viper Two, acknowledged and confirmed that was our target at which point I gave the order to roll in. We opted to go twenty mike-mike on the truck since it was not considered a hardened target."

"And the reason behind that." Kershaw asked, walking right into it.

"Twenty mm bullets are cheaper than a JDAM." The sarcasm in Animal's voice was cutting. "We were limited ordnance and didn't have another option, two JDAMs per aircraft and I wasn't going to waste one on a Hajji truck."

"Perhaps, but you do realize that the most wanted terrorist in the world was in that truck at that time?" Kershaw replied, his tone infuriatingly pedantic. "That's an incredible risk to take…by not utilizing the most powerful weapon that you had on your aircraft at the time. Admiral."

Animal kicked his chair back, his face dark in anger, standing up and leaning over the table threateningly at Kershaw, hissed at the spook, "Listen, Kershaw, YOU weren't in the cockpit. I was tactical and I was the one making the decisions at the time. If you don't like it…"

"SIT DOWN! Admiral!" VADM McMahon snapped out, her command cracking like a whip as she cut Animal off. Animal subsided and did as requested; after all she did have one more stripe than he had. Harm noticed that Animal subsided, his face exhibiting a rather mutinous glare which he directed at Kershaw.

"And your position on the whole escapade? Commander?" Kershaw asked.

"Same as the admiral, sir." Harm said respectfully, yet backing up his operation commander. "We did what was asked, executed the operation and eliminated the targets. I'm not sure why we're getting grilled for this."

"The reason is because we lost an operative on the mission. There was absolutely no way to get him out?" Kershaw looked pained. For all the pain in the ass that Webb caused every single one of them in that room with perhaps the exception of the vice-admiral, Harm thought; the man did not deserve the death that he had received. Mrs Webb would be dignified in her receipt of the news but inside, Harm had a feeling that she would be devastated to realize that there would probably never be a body that she could bury. She was ex-NSA, she knew that there was the distinct possibility that an agent's body was unable to be recovered.

"Sir," Harm said, stifling down the thoughts that went through his mind and tried to focus on the debrief from the CIA. "With all due respect, you weren't there. We had absolutely no time to get him out and if the ground spotters had tried, they would have been cut to pieces."

Harrison Kershaw did not seem satisfied with that explanation, however, he said gruffly. "I understand…it's a great loss to the intelligence community but it appears that you did your best under the circumstances." In fact, Kershaw seemed disgruntled that he couldn't pin the latest cluster-fuck on the two aviators, because they performed competently, in the eyes of the Navy, and there would be fall-out if he went after the admiral. He looked over at Catherine to see censure in her eyes at his attempt to smear the name of the man that she was now in a relationship with, the man who stepped up to be the father-figure to her yet unborn child. And he wondered if she would ever believe him again. A little demon on his shoulder laughed at him for that thought. Nobody in the intelligence community ever trusted anything, and if anything, Webb and he had taught her well. Catherine wasn't cut out for the intelligence community, her background was in the law and it was an opening that allowed her into the Central Intelligence Agency. Kershaw knew in the expression in her face, that when he had gone after the admiral and the commander, that she would never trust him again.

Catherine, who had remained silent throughout the meeting, or more like interrogation, looked over at the admiral who held a stony countenance, far different from the loving man who embraced his wife at the airfield and joyfully seized his child up in an embrace and gave him a piggy-back ride off the field. She looked over at Harm who held a look of betrayal in his eyes, and she knew that she would have to work with him on that to prove that she wasn't in league with Kershaw in his opinion of them. She knew that she would have to do a lot of soul-searching however she knew one thing was for certain, that she needed to apologize to Harm and the admiral for this; to let them know that she did not approve of Kershaw's attempt to discredit their actions. "I'll find my own way back…" she informed Kershaw as he got up out of his chair. His look of surprise made her explain. "I'm going to need to talk with Commander Rabb." She said formally.

"Very well…" he said resignedly, "I'll make sure and let the lot know that your car will be picked up late…" as he grabbed his leather conference bag and the pad of paper from the table on which he had scrawled the extremely brief notes from the intelligence debrief, headed to the door of the room and left.

VADM McMahon said to Catherine, "Ma'am, I will need you and Commander Rabb to step outside for a moment." Harm nodded, got up out of his seat moving to Catherine's side.

"Very well, Admiral…" Catherine replied as she looked over at Harm with a worried expression and headed out the door accompanied by Harm.

When the door closed behind them, they looked at each other as the door closing was punctuated by a resounding slap of palm of hand meeting table.

**_Office of Naval Investigation, National Maritime Intelligence Center, Suitland, Maryland 1600hrs_**

"Admiral, I really don't care if he was taking a pot-shot at your abilities!" Vice Admiral Leanna McMahon snapped, "he is the Deputy Director of the CIA. You will render him the respect accorded to his position. Am I clear?"

"Yes, ma'am!" Animal was braced at the position of attention.

"You are lucky that as an admiral you are not brought under courts-martial. I'm sure the Judge Advocate General would be highly interested in pursuing a case of disrespecting an official against you." VADM McMahon glared at him.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Understand that blue-button will not protect you if you step over the line with any elected or commissioned officials inside the United States Government. I don't care if the person is a blooming five-star idiot; you will respect him or her, do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"One of these days, your mouth will get you into more trouble than your award can get you out of. So curb that temper of yours and make sure that you engage your brain before your mouth the next time!"

"Yes, ma'am."

_**In a cave within the Takht-e-Sulaiman, Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa, Pakistan**_

Ahmad Aziz Khoroushi and Abd al-Rashid Tamid Ali pored for hours over maps of Washington DC that they had obtained directly from the internet. "The White House is a tempting but too heavily defended target. If we can keep the infidels occupied until such time that we have another contact that can get us the weapon we need." Ali said.

"That Russian weapon had taken thirty five million out of our coffers and it was destroyed by the Americans." Khoroushi replied. "Perhaps such a weapon is overkill for what we intend to achieve."

"Fahd always was a fool." Ali snorted, with no small amount of derision towards the dead man. "He wanted to make the biggest splash when we were trying to remain stealthy under the Americans' radar." He looked directly at Khoroushi, "And all he did was attract their attention and look at what it cost him?"

"So shall we send Mahmud into the Great Satan's den and allow him to create havoc and while the Americans' attention is on him, we shall send yet another team into Washington to deliver a crippling blow to the Great Satan where he is not looking?" Khoroushi snickered noting that the diversion would create a perfect opportunity to deliver what he called strike at the heart of the United States.

**_Office of Naval Investigation, National Maritime Intelligence Center, Suitland, Maryland 1600hrs_**

Harm looked over at Catherine who gazed at him in return. "Were you there because of him?" The unspoken inference was that Catherine had come because she was aware of Kershaw's intention. She shook her head.

"No, I wasn't aware that he was going to jump you until we sat down in the office…" she said gesturing to the closed door. "…and it didn't sit well with me after all you two did." Harm snorted.

"Well, it seemed like he was already to throw us to the wolves." Catherine couldn't object to that. That was the way it looked to her from where she had been sitting as well.

"Were you going to say anything?" Harm sounded hurt.

"What could I say, in support of you, Harm? Everything was black. I had no idea of what went on. I haven't even been able to read the operation briefings. All I did while you were gone was to lay there on your bed and eat ice-cream to soothe my nerves about you being gone?" Catherine was right; Harm looked over at her to see the anguish written all over her face and realized that he was being unfair to her for just accompanying Kershaw to the meeting. The other thought in his mind was that potentially Kershaw was trying to use this opportunity to drive a wedge between Catherine and him. And he would be damned if he let that happen.

"Look, Cath, I don't know what to think right now; we did what we thought was right and now we're getting grilled for it. But I know that I don't want it to affect us…" he looked over at her and Catherine nodded. "All we have is us."

"Harm…I have to think about some stuff tonight…I need to be able to bounce this plan of mine off you." Catherine asked him, hoping his response was positive.

"You have to pick up your car at Langley." Harm noted.

Catherine nodded. "But then I'll follow you home. Because my decision of what I plan to do is going to hinge upon us and will involve some big changes." Harm started to look worried. "No, Harm it's not us breaking up…just trust me on this, OK?"

Harm calmed himself before he nodded. He was about to say something when the door to the room they were in opened and Animal casually sauntered out of the ONI CO's office as Catherine and Harm looked up at him in question. "You alright? Sir?" Harm asked as Animal walked over to them.

"I'm perfectly fine, just my ass-end got a little toasted, but I'm perfectly good." Animal grinned at him. "So you two get a chance to talk things over?" He sensed that there was a little bit of friction between the two of them that had just been smoothed over.

"Yes, we're good now." Catherine replied, relieved that Animal hadn't retained any bit of animosity towards her.

"Good…because I'm now hungry…" Animal grinned. "I'm in the mood for a nice deliciously juicy steak, provided my helo pilot destined to get me back to Norfolk isn't hot to trot."

"If it's got a heaping pile of mashed potatoes slathered in gravy beside it…I'm game, Admiral." Catherine grinned as Harm held his head in his hands groaning.

"UGH!" He said, looking up at the sky with a pathetic air of entreaty towards the Almighty to lend a hand, "Meat eaters, why did I have to fall in with a group of meat-eaters."

"Hey, Harm…" Animal grinned evilly. "I'm sure we can get some Brussels sprouts for ya."


	9. Chapter 9

_**Author's Note: **__I will be trying to get my recalcitrant muse to cooperate with me on writing this story, but sometimes, my muse is less than cooperative and I practically have to beat it into submission: yes, I know. Muse abuse is not right... But it is soooooo satisfying._

_**Office of Naval Investigation, National Maritime Intelligence Center, Suitland, Maryland 1615hrs.**_

Animal wandered into the atrium at the ONI headquarters. Harm and Catherine in tow. Harm and Animal's military ID and visitor's badges accorded them the privileges of being able to access food services at the Office of Naval Investigation as well as being in the presence of a bonafide CIA lawyer with an authorized CIA employee badge. When they had managed to locate the ONI cafeteria, Animal's face had a distinct look of surprise seeing all the entrances to the various food proprietors in the cafeteria and having to decide which of them he was going to patronize. Catherine nixed any further confusion in the matter by promptly heading towards Burger King which Animal promptly followed. Harm threw up his hands in silent protest.

Harm tried to appease his rapidly increasing distaste of fast food by making sure that he found himself a vegetarian fast food location to eat at. It may not have been true vegetarian however it would suffice if the two carnivores with him: one to the side; the other to the right of him would stop making sounds that sounded like they were having an oral orgasm.

He looked over at Catherine and stated, "You know how many cows went into making that burger?" He thought for a moment how stupid that sounded considering the size difference between a burger and a cow.

"One..." Catherine replied; her eyes half-open in ecstasy as she savored the flavors of the burger in question. Harm rolled his eyes. He never really could understand how humans could eat an animal. It would be as if he took a dog, slaughtered it, and ate it. It was just that reprehensible. And the smell of cooked meat just turned his stomach.

"You sure you have enough ketchup on it?" He asked, his stomach curdling in revulsion. "The sliced pickles are swimming in a sea of red.".

"I like my burger that way..." Catherine pointed out. "Now eat your Brussels sprouts before they get cold.".

Animal snickered as he savored his own teriyaki burger along with a side of fries that made Harm's arteries constrict at the sheer horror of all that cholesterol.

"You know that stuff will kill you?" Harm remarked with a smug expression on his face, a bite of salad balance precariously on his plastic disposable fork.

"Yep...". Animal grinned back. "And if I wear a six foot scarf on an escalator too, I might die of asphyxiation as well…" he shot back just as his phone rang. "Just a second…" Animal said as he pulled out his Motorola RAZR V3… "Oh, hi?" All Harm heard was a muffled buzzing that sounded like speech. "Oh, hi…sweetheart." He said.

_**Cafeteria; Office of Naval Investigation, National Maritime Intelligence Center, Suitland, Maryland 1635hrs**_

Animal took the call and heard his wife on the other end. "Honey? Can you pick up some bread on the way home? Mikey got into some mud and I have to give him a bath."

"OK…" Animal raised his eyebrows as Harm and Catherine looked on in amusement at Animal's expression.

"Do I need to pick up some laundry soap as well?" He asked, sure that the answer was going to be yes. It was.

"Pick up some dryer sheets too." She ordered.

"Yes, dear." Animal returned. "I love you."

"Love you too…" Animal heard in his ear as he looked over at Harm and Catherine who were looking at each other with identical grins on their faces. "I'll see you at about eighteen hundred."

"Wife?" Catherine asked while Harm smirked at Animal.

"Yes. Ms. Gale." Animal grinned. "She just wanted me to pick up a few things from the supermarket. Evidently she is extremely busy at the moment."

"Does she know that you're in Maryland?" Catherine asked Animal.

Animal gave Catherine a wide grin, "Nary a clue…" lifting up his arm to look at his big aviator's watch, the Breitling Chronomat 41 that Maegyn O'Bannon-Nakamura had given him for their 10th Anniversary. "I'm sure my helo pilot has worn a six foot hole in the pad by now; I gotta head back to Norfolk." He grinned. "Good to see you again. Ms Gale." He got up, shook both of their hands, took his tray and headed off.

As Animal disappeared amongst the cluster of Navy uniforms, Catherine looked over at Harm. "He really is something." She commented wryly. "His personality is a force of nature." She commented to Harm who nodded quietly.

Harm replied after a long moment of silence. "He is..." Harm said simply. "So I'm going to presume you need a ride to Langley?" He asked Catherine who nodded affirmative.

"I'd really appreciate it..." Catherine looked at him from the corner of her eyes demurely; with a hint of cheeky merriment in them.

Harm gave it right back to her with a look of mock put-upon affront. "Oh...if I must..." and nudged her side. Her airy sniff of insulted pique made him laugh as they grinned at each other. "Shall we go?" He asked.

Catherine looked at him. "Yes, if only so that we can get to talking about my plan sooner."

Harm's car was in the underground parking for visiting officers at the Office of Naval Intelligence and only about a minute's walk after going through the doors of the elevator at the P1 level. Navigating the rows of cars, Harm was able to find his Lexus relatively well. Mentally remembering the location of his vehicle was a plus and his direction finding was able to problem-solve that situation very quickly.

Between the cafeteria and the walk to the car, her mood dipped a bit and Harm noticed. "What's wrong."

"I haven't been to see Mom in over a week. I've had to beg off with work, but in reality, I've just been hiding." Catherine replied.

"You haven't been feeling well?" Harm asked, noting that she threw up in the morning, "And after the morning sickness, you don't seem to have the energy to do much, with the exception of bathing and eating." He commented.

"Are you saying I'm lazy?" Catherine said imperiously raising her eyebrows; the hint of amusement in her eyes defusing her harsh question.

"No…" Harm said hastily…backpedalling. "Never. You're the most hardworking lawyer, I've ever seen…" He bit back a bit of laughter at Catherine's disbelieving stare.

"Oaf."

"How about we go see your mother before we go back to my place?" he asked, "Or…can you manage a visit?"

Catherine wanted to, but she wasn't up to being grilled nine ways from Sunday. "Tomorrow, then, Harm. I just want to get my car and head for home." She looked up at him expectantly…and Harm realized that she had meant home…his place was home to her. A wide grin split his features and he said, "Sure…OK…tomorrow then. Let's go home."

_**In a cave within the Takht-e-Sulaiman, Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa, Pakistan 0130hrs (next day)**_

Mahmud Fahd gathered up seven other men within the cave system to sit down and brief them. They would be getting papers to work in the United States, in preparation for scouting out weak points within the American infrastructure. They would also work to get access to industrial equipment such as a cement truck and a cement factory to throw off suspicion. Obtaining Ammonium Nitrate/Fuel Oil was going to be a problem however, but the possibility of utilizing such to create a foundation for a new storage plant could potentially be a cover, Fahd thought. Khoroushi had a point. There was satisfaction in planning and waiting for the right moment. Unlike his brother, Mahmud Fahd was not a hot-head. He wanted to plan out his attacks well and with maximum devastation. If he seeded the ANFO with uranium dioxide pellets, he would essentially have planted a nuclear dirty bomb; one that wouldn't have blown up with blast effect such as a fission or fusion weapon, but would still essentially scatter radiation around the area in a manner that would have made clean-up impossible. But where to get uranium dioxide pellets that was not governed by local law. To potentially buy it in small amounts would make it unfeasible, but they probably would have to do it that particular way to keep authorities from finding out just how much was going to the farm. Perhaps various drop-boxes would be a way of keeping authorities in the dark.

The logistics of this operation were complex and there were many pitfalls. The planning could take months, years even...and through that timeframe things could change. Governments could change. Laws surrounding travel, import laws, real estate laws...firearms laws. Problems could crop up if laws were implemented that only US citizens could own US property or weapons. It would perhaps not stop an attack but could certainly hamper the operation to a point where they could not wreak maximum devastation on the US populace. Insh'Allah -As Allah wills, Mahmud said to himself.

The seven men sitting in front of Mahmud nodded to themselves. It was a suicide mission that could take years in the planning for it to succeed. The Americans knew that there would be fire and bloodshed in retribution for every life that was taken at their infidel hands. And Mahmud and his fellow compatriots, as revolutionaries, knew the price of failure.

Mahmud recognized that he would not be able to control every aspect of the planning process and his personality rebelled against that realization, however he forced himself to take a step back and allocate the tasks to his subordinates. A fresh mind would be able to look at the problem from a new angle and allow them to figure out a way of solving a problem that he, himself, would have been unable to see. New minds, new solutions, he thought. Mahmud had to problem-solve, he reflected. In this way, the Al Qaeda leader, Khoroushi had forced him to push his brother's death to the side in order to figure out the best possible way to strike back against the great Satan. He smiled to himself and shook his head. Khoroushi was smart. He knew that impetuousness would be ill-timed and forcing Mahmud to slow down and think out the process would cool his anger and forge that molten revenge into a cold-steel arrowhead aimed right at the Great Satan's heart. The awareness of this tactic forced Mahmud to confront his own weaknesses.

"A quarry purchase would eliminate a lot of suspicion with regards to large quantities of ammonium nitrate, Mahmud?" Youssef Haroun Ahmad commented. Youssef was a lanky young man with a beard who wore a traditional pakol cap with his Khet partug. "It would also deflect suspicion when we buy several large dump-trucks to contain the ammonium nitrate."

"How so, Youssef?"

"We will be able to do several controlled blasts at the quarry in order to determine how much ammonium nitrate we would need and if we are to operate a quarry, they would expect us to blast so that we can continue to provide cement to those infidels that require it. It is a cover." Youssef smiled widely.

"Very well, that appears to be quite useful." Mahmud said as he looked around the seated group of seven men. "What about you?" he asked yet another quiet one, Waqar Bahij El-Ghazzawy, who nodded as he sat in front of his computer.

"I can contact one of the members of yet other cell who is in a medical program in Boston, a Masood Toufik Kader, he can figure out a way to get us the radioactive material in a way that the NSA will not be suspicious."

Mahmud nodded as he looked over at the man. "And he will be able to get it for us in the time frame in which we need it for?"

"We will need to contact him after we are all in the States. First is the quarry." Youssef said to Mahmud. "The plan is to purchase a quarry and operate it for several months to allay suspicion; the time frame being when we acquire the trucks and the ammonium nitrate for several controlled explosions within the quarry so that we can calculate how big of an explosion we will need to spread destruction over a wide area of at least five blocks which is what we will need to irradiate our target."

Mahmud nodded. What they were saying made sense. They needed to have a reason for buying ammonium nitrate and conducting controlled blasts with the excuse that they were making more ingredients for the cement would be the perfect solution to the problem. What more of a solution could they come up with.

"I will leave you to the solving of the problem." Mahmud stated as he looked over at the men under his command. "Insh'Allah."

_**North of Union Station, Washington DC 1940hrs**_

After picking up food on the way home, Harm, with Catherine following in her own vehicle, drove into the alley beside the rather dilapidated ex-factory converted to apartment building that Harm called home. He thought wryly to himself that the gentrification process of converting the industrial section of that area had failed miserably and that this thing should have been first on the wrecking ball. Anyhow, he decided that the first thing that he was going to do was to find some other place to live. If Catherine was serious on planning a life with him, he would prefer to be living in what could be considered a child-friendly home.

The ride up the creaky freight elevator that served as the elevator for the building was not enjoyable or calming to the nerves as Harm would have preferred as the elevator let out a rasping creak that caused the elevator to vibrate. Catherine cringed visibly. That elevator either needed to be replaced. Between that or the building; Harm would have preferred the whole building to be replaced. But the likelihood of that happening...he'd give better odds to seeing a iceberg with penguin passengers floating along the Anacostia.

They both breathed a distinct sigh of relief upon exiting that rickety mode of vertical transport. Harm pulled out his key and opened the door, sighing in relief at the comfort of his own home, but he realized that he would have to start looking in the papers in the morning. Starting with a five bedroom home; due to the fact that he was certain that Catherine was going to want to expand their family at some point in their lifetime.

Catherine, having preceded him into his abode, had settled herself on the couch. Harm headed for the kitchen to put their take-out food on dishes; it ended up as 5 Guys. Catherine had gotten herself a couple of 5-Guys Bacon Cheeseburgers and Harm had picked up a Veggie Sandwich with lettuce, pickles and tomatoes. A single large plate accommodated both their meals which still remained in the wrappers. Catherine also having procured a 5 Guys Style Fries consumed her meal with a contented look on her face as Harm looked over at her devouring down the ground beef with a mild hint of disgust while he ate his veggie sandwich.

"You know…" Catherine said as she looked over at Harm, "…you are just going to have to get used to me being a carnivore."

"I know…" Harm answered her with a resigned look. "It's just that… I'm still too used to being a vegetarian and any scent of meat makes me want to throw up."

"Well, at least you haven't." Catherine returned rather unrepentantly as she started consuming her second burger and smacked the back of Harm's hand as he reached for a fresh-cut potato fry. "Mine!" she said smirking at Harm. "Should have got your own if you wanted fries." She proclaimed eyeing Harm's fingers with suspicion.

"So you were wanting to talk about something?" Harm inquired.

"After I finish eating." Catherine responded as she continued with her meal. When Catherine finished her final burger and her fries, she crumpled the wrapper and placed it on the plate that Harm had provided. She then looked up hesitantly and said "Harm with all the things that we went through over the past several months, we haven't really made the time to really talk about us; to talk about us, as a couple."

Harm nodded silently in agreement. If anything he had agreed to the "sham marriage" on a wing and a prayer hoping if anything that it would lead him to Mac. But that had blown up in his face. Catherine looked up at him expectantly.

"Yeah..." He said quietly. "That was a whirlwind marriage."

She sighed, "It wasn't the marriage I pictured. I didn't know if you were just humoring me or if you felt sorry for me because of Mom or...if you were using me to get to LCol. Mackenzie." There it was out in the open. "I don't want to be your rebound girl. Harmon Rabb.". Catherine declared. "I know that you wanted to put closure on your relationship with LCol. Mackenzie but are you done with her?. If you're mine; you're mine one hundred and ten percent and I'm not someone who likes to share!" Harm saw that her expression was a pugnacious frown.

"The chance for any sort of relationship with Mac is dead on the pyre of futility." He said definitively as he gauged her response. "I needed to find out for certain how serious she was. That's why I went down to Paraguay. I wanted to show her just how much I cared. And as it turned out, she didn't care much at all since after I rescued her, she lip-locked Webb. And I don't want to sit here wondering if she's going to yank the string to try to draw me back into her merry game. I'm tired of being a yo-yo for her amusement." Harm reiterated as he looked at Catherine, wondering what she would say.

"Well, she'd better not come around again to try to snare you into her web, because I'll defend what's mine." she said, her tone defiant. That possessive statement said, she continued. "Now that's out of the way, where do we go from here?" Catherine thought to herself, if he wants to. She still wasn't sure about the whole relationship thing but her fervent declaration spoke volumes to Harm who leaned in to take her hand in his.

"Where do you want to go?" Harm asked realizing that it wasn't a time to joke around. Catherine's eyes met his; a deer in the headlights look on her face telling him that she hadn't thought past her emotional declaration.

"I..." She stammered for a brief moment. "I really hadn't thought that far ahead. All I really wanted to know was where the both of us stood on our relationship."

Harm grinned as he reached out his other hand to her. "Then how about we find that out together?" He suggested. The look on Catherine's face rewarded him as her brilliant smile favored him.

"Have we reached an agreement?" She asked impishly.

"I think so. Lucky thing we're lawyers, huh?" Harm grinned. "So we moved in together." Catherine nodded slowly looking at her jacket, and suitcase. "What's next, I think, is that this apartment isn't big enough and I really don't think this apartment is in the right neighborhood to raise a family." He looked at Catherine to see if she agreed with his assessment.

Catherine looked around the place and said, "It's nice for a bachelor or maybe even a childless married couple, but you're right. A child and this apartment could get real small real quick."

"So would you agree that house-hunting is next on our priority list?"

"I think so..." was her agreement. "How practical..." She joked. "You were such a gentleman sleeping on the couch for three nights."

Harm looked at her wryly while rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. "Yeah, I'm starting to get a permanent crick in my neck."

Catherine reached out her hands. "Well since we've established where we stand in our relationship...isn't it about time that we actually..." Her eyes locked with his, "started behaving like a couple..." She grasped his hands and brought them around her waist, feeling his hand interlock his fingers together then pull her towards him. "You gave me a taste of your kisses. I want the rest of you..." She said wrapping her arms around him.

"Are you sure?" Harm asked, his voice hoarse, his body reacting to Catherine's closeness.

"I'm sure" was Cath's definitive reply.

_**Animal and Maegyn's Home 511 Breckinridge Avenue, Norfolk, VA 2007hrs**_

Animal strode through the door putting his leather valise to the side and his briefcase by the entrance as he took off his black jacket with the two stars on either shoulder, hanging the jacket up and placing his officer's Bancroft in the hallway closet. The grocery bag of things he had laid down prior to putting down his briefcase.

"Daddy's home!" Animal heard Maegyn's voice tell Michael who squealed joyously. Animal braced himself for a tornado in the form of a little two year old impacting his legs. He smiled at his son who was wrapping his arms around his legs looking up at him and gazing up at him Leaning down, he picked up his son and lifted him up in his arms

"How's my big boy?" Animal grinned at him.

Mikey gazed at him gravely. "Daddy home?"

"Yup." Animal replied. "You need to start heading for bed, young man..." He aimed a teasing severe look at his son who just grinned at him. "I'm not kidding...You...need to head for bed!".

Maegyn was giving him an indulgent look as Animal carried his son and the bag of stuff that he'd gotten on his way home into the kitchen.

"Shall I put Mikey down for the night?" Animal asked his wife.

Maegyn shook her head and said. "You relax, hon..." She took Mikey and said "Bedtime, young man!. Daddy's tired and would like to eat and relax. You had dinner, now its time for bed!"

Mikey let out a howl of protest but like it or not, his mother was adamant that Mikey was going to bed. It took an hour but the wails of protest finally subsided enough that Maegyn was able to reappear in the kitchen. By that time Animal had dished himself up some food from the dinner Maegyn had made and was able to sit down and enjoy a meal.

"So what all happened today?". Maegyn asked.

"Got called in by ONI and that's all I can say...". Animal said briefly, raising fork to mouth to partake of the rest of the meal. Maegyn knew all too well that her husband was dealing with classified information and did not ask further about it.

Giving him a kiss on the cheek she murmured, "I missed you today..." Animal looked up at her, his eyes searching her face. She still missed flying but it had been her choice to go inactive reserve. Yet she was able to fly one weekend a month with the VFA-202 being current on the F/A-18C Hornet. Animal had been yanked out of fighters and had only recently been certified as a Hornet aviator due to his being COMNAVAIRLANT. But he rarely ever got a chance to go flying. She knew he didn't begrudge her that one weekend a month but she also knew it pained him to not be able to fly and even though her heart was in her throat over the last mission he'd had to fly, courtesy of the _secret squirrel_ society, she knew that he had needed this to prove that he still had it within him.

"Did you?" he growled softly as he reached around to wrap his arm around Maegyn's waist. She leaned down to give him a tender kiss on the lips.

"I did…" Maegyn whispered in his ear. "You were gone a week to deal with that mess the secret squirrels wanted you to clean up…" …she ran her fingers lightly across his cheek. "It…left me…rather frustrated…" she purred. She looked down to see Animal looking up at her with a big smile on his face.

And…what happened after that left a big smile on hers.

_**Mac's Apartment, Georgetown, Washington DC 2200hrs**_

Mac sat on the couch in a darkened apartment, wondering just where her life had taken that left turn onto Damnation Alley. It felt good to be needed after feeling helpless in Paraguay. She felt that she needed to help Clay, to help him regain himself, but he was throwing himself deeper and deeper into alcoholism, in his last days. She felt like she owed him in a way, deflecting the terrorists' attentions from her, to take the torture himself. She didn't know what she could do to snap him out of it but before she could help him recover, circumstance had taken Clay away from her. She knew that she was playing with the hearts of two men, but if she couldn't have the one that she wanted. Then she'd go after the one that she could get. But now…Clay was dead.

She felt lost, alone and bitter. The man, whom she'd wanted, the man whose emotions she had toyed with, had woken up; he was no longer a slave to her whims. He'd found someone else, and as always, Sarah Mackenzie ended up alone with no-one to comfort her.

She shook her head silently. Everything that she had held together by way of tenuous strings was coming unravelled. Harm evidently wanted the female spook lawyer and not her. And that sanctimonious prig of an admiral had his own family. Harm was always there when her life had fallen apart in the past…

Who could she turn to now?


	10. Chapter 10

_**Animal and Maegyn's Home 511 Breckinridge Avenue, Norfolk, VA 0500hrs**_

Animal stirred from his sleep when the alarm clock went off. Muttering a caustic epithet in the clock's general direction although the clock didn't deserve it, he got out of bed, heading for the shower. A brisk shower and Animal felt more awake. Toweling off, he headed back into the bedroom to find his fresh uniform to wear for the day.

Maegyn murmured softly in her sleep as Animal got ready for his workday. Maegyn, like Animal, was not a morning person and it wasn't wise to wake her if he could help it when he had to wake up at oh five hundred; so just a little _I love you_ scrawl on a piece of notepaper on the bedside table was all that was required. So he quietly walked over to the closet where his uniforms were hanging and picked out a fresh set of khakis with ribbons and rank insignia on them. Fortunately, they always went into the closet pressed and it was a _wear and go_.

He usually did not pop his head in Mikey's room to make certain that he didn't disturb Mikey's sleep. Mikey was so full of energy and popped awake at the slightest sound of the door opening, so Animal preferred to slip out quietly into the early morning air so as to not wake the two-year old alarm-clock and give his wife some much-needed sleep in the morning. The red brick Virginia Statesman home was quite an old building, but had been redesigned on the inside to bring it up to modern with Hawthorne maple laminate flooring to give it a much brighter appearance on the inside. The old cabinets were torn out and replaced with new cabinetry which gave Maegyn much needed cooking space.

Ever since she'd received her O-6 and had switched to Navy Reserve with its one weekend a month service requirement, she had taken up cooking, as well as motherhood, with a vengeance. Animal would come home to some repast that Maegyn had conjured up after sending him out on a retrieval run for some esoteric ingredients, invariably making Animal wonder how the hell she was going to cobble that all together to make something that seemed to be edible.

Animal's drive wasn't very far. A turn onto Morris Street and the Navy's Headquarters for the Atlantic Region loomed up ahead and the parking next to the building was quite sparse with the exception of a few on the night watch. Parking his car, he got out of the vehicle with briefcase in hand, striding to the main door, which he opened with his pass-card. Returning the salute of the Marine sentry and a perfunctory, "Good Morning, Staff Sergeant", he headed for the elevator.

Upon arriving at the fifth floor of the building, the elevator doors opened and he walked over to the doors emblazoned with the USN COMNAVAIRLANT crest. The office being empty yet, allowed him a chance to brew himself a cup of coffee, add two cream, two sugar and grab a bag of chips from the NEX Vending Machine located in the building and Animal was set to start his day. Of course, Maegyn would give him hell for the unhealthy snack of Lay's regular potato chips and she'd probably give him even more hell for buying a Pepsi later on that day. But he sure as hell wasn't about to try a Kale smoothie. No thank you very much.

It was about oh seven thirty hours when Animal's morning which was going fine until then…went to hell in a hand-basket. The first was a call from the Naval Intelligence wanting Animal to come back down to their headquarters for a meeting presumably about another operation that was being scheduled. This time they wanted Animal and Harm to work with them in conjunction with the CIA. They were not happy about naval assets being used without their knowledge for CIA work.

The next call was at oh seven forty five hrs when the damned phone started ringing again. "RADM Nakamura!" Animal said brusquely into the phone, barely even looking at it because his attention was on the readme file.

"Do you know why the hell Vice-Admiral McMahon just called me telling me that she needed Commander Rabb back at ONI this morning?! He just had to re-schedule a court hearing that's been rescheduled three times before! I'm getting flak from the judge!" When the receiver started sparking with AJ's vitriol, he pulled the phone away from his ear just far enough to keep from getting deafened. "Do you understand the nature of the case that he's working on?" A stupid rhetorical question…as Animal wasn't a legal beagle, he'd have no reason to know the wherefores, the what's and what-not's of a legal case. "If a case of that magnitude is recessed too many times, it gets thrown out of court…"

"Are you done?" Animal asked crossly when the Judge Advocate General stopped a second to breathe. "Doesn't the judge only have one-star, AJ?" Animal retorted back sarcastically. "McMahon has three…and I ain't about to cross her even if I've got two. If you wanna lock horns with her, be my guest. Tell the judge that it's a matter of national security, lie out your ass, I really don't give a shit…but Commander Rabb has been requested presence by a three-star which outweighs us handily in the rank department." He paused for a moment then bore on, "Surely you have legal people capable of handling that case that you could reassign the case to, AJ."

RADM Chegwidden sounded deflated, "But none that can deliver a slam-dunk victory like Commander Rabb…"

"Not my problem, AJ…" Animal said deadpan, "Get the case reassigned. I've got a date with an ornery three-star and Commander Rabb is the expected third party to that date. Something regarding national security is going down and that's all you need to know about it." AJ had better sense than to argue with Animal. They both had formidable wills, but the problem was that Animal, despite the fact that he had only two stars, had a three star on his ass and combined, AJ was out-ranked and he knew it. The dial tone was _answer enough_ as Animal snorted. He set the receiver back on the cradle, then picked it up and dialed an internal number.

"COMNAVAIRLANT Headquarters, Chief Yeoman Trebalos speaking."

"Chief, it's Nakamura, get me Chambers Field on the horn."

"Yes, sir."

"Same location as yesterday." The admiral informed him.

"Yes, sir."

"Good man."

"Thank you, sir."

_**Office of Naval Investigation, National Maritime Intelligence Center, Suitland, Maryland 0930hrs**_

When Animal walked into the room, Harm was already there along with another man, a brawny fellow who seemed to be of Eastern European descent. Animal gave him a who are you look and the man got up, an enigmatic look on his face. He towered over the admiral by at least a foot and out-heighted Harm by at least three inches, outweighing him by at least 50 pounds. He had to be at least six foot eight and at least two hundred and eighty pounds. "Peter Kardos…" the man said, his voice was low, but soft-spoken. "I suspect that you know who I work for. Just don't let it get around…sir."

"OK…" Animal replied irreverently, "I suspect that you can read uniforms."

"That I can, sir." Kardos replied. "Six years in Marine Recon, Four years in the Corps before that, sir… met plenty of superior officers in my time in the Marine Corps before the Company recruited me. I was a Gunny when they recruited me, sir."

"So you do still think like a Marine." Animal stated.

"Every single moment of the day, sir. The Company hasn't driven that out of me yet."

Harm was looking at Animal in amazement. "I've been sitting here with him for an hour and you've gotten more out of him than I have in that hour." He sounded like he was complaining.

"Well, sir. You're just a lowly O-5, sir." Kardos grinned at him. Animal snickered as Harm glowered at Kardos.

"Since you've out-processed, you're not subject to the UCMJ", Harm noted darkly as Animal and the former GSGT Peter Kardos grinned, pretty much ignoring Harm's toothless threat. He couldn't do anything to a six eight former Marine, let alone one that was built like a brick shit-house so he grumbled to himself about the roasting that he was getting.

Animal looked at his watch. "Well, I know that you secret squirrels didn't invite us for a cup of coffee and a fireside chat." Kardos snorted at the derisive reference to FDR's little wartime radio broadcasts.

"No, actually that wasn't the reason..." Kardos responded as he looked over seriously at the two naval officers sitting in front of him. "We have news that the new head of Al Qaeda is putting out feelers to see if there is any soft targets. We're expecting something to happen inside of the next three weeks. Homeland Security is keeping a watch on any suspicious entries to the United States."

"Are you dragging us into something again?" Harm asked knowing just how riled Catherine was going to be if he had to go out of country on another wild goose-chase.

"I have no idea what's going to happen...but whatever they're planning, it's gonna be big." Kardos replied enigmatically, "Maybe even on the scale of the World Trade Center attacks. Fringe groups are trying to make threats to throw us off."

"So what do you want us to do about it?" Animal looked perturbed.

"Sir, you may be headed back to sea for deployment."

"Battle-group commander is a one star job." Animal corrected him.

"Sir, we need two flags on this. You, sir, have the experience of having dealt with these terrorists and Commander Rabb has been face to face with Sadik Fahd. You two eliminated him, we found his body." Kardos replied, "and what was left of Webb." He grimaced, having seen the photos. "It wasn't pretty. They had to ID him from his dental records."

"You one hundred percent sure that body was Sadik Fahd?" Harm said. "The guy is like a chameleon; he'll change his face so that he looks completely different; and the only one who spent any time with him is dead." Animal looked at Harm with a raised eyebrow in question. Harm shook his head; he wasn't about to drag Mackenzie into the mix even if it seemed as though they weren't friends anymore. Besides the last time he had spoken to Mac, it hadn't gone over well. Animal shrugged his shoulders.

There was a knock on the door as Kardos got to his feet, "Come in, Ma'am..." He said as the door opened and VADM McMahon walked in with a sheaf of papers.

She gave him a grudging look of appreciation at the CIA spy's gesture of respect. "Well, Gunnery Sergeant Kardos, I'm glad to see that a few years on the block haven't driven all the military values out of you. Unlike some who are still serving..." She said pointedly, looking at Animal who was swigging a drink of Pepsi nonchalantly.

Kardos evidently had read up on his dossier and had put out his favorite drinks as refreshments. Sitting down across from Animal, she raised an eyebrow as Animal put down the Pepsi and looked at her with a "Yes, ma'am…" as infuriatingly as possible; cloyingly innocent and properly respectful. It was well known as to how much Animal disliked rear-echelon _mike foxtrots_ and he did everything to tweak their sensibilities.

"Rear Admiral Nakamura…" McMahon stated as she looked at Animal with some sniff of disdain. She was a rank-climber, persistent on military decorum and structure and Animal knew it from her very bearing. And every single ribbon on her rack screamed _career staff officer_. "You have orders…" she handed him over a sheaf of papers bearing the seal of the Chief of Naval Operations.

Animal read over the orders with nary a reaction, much to Vice Admiral McMahon's disappointment. "Yes, ma'am." He repeated not even looking up from the papers.

"So you don't have any sort of objection to being sent out to the Persian Gulf, yet again?" she asked. She knew damned well that it was a punishment detail.

"Ma'am. I follow orders. The CNO details me out to the Persian Gulf and areas surrounding, my only response is _When_ and for _how long_…and whether I have enough time to execute the mission to the depth of detail that is required." Animal replied with as bland a reaction as possible. Maegyn wasn't going to like this one bit, but well, orders were orders.

Vice Admiral McMahon seemed to be let down that Animal hadn't had any contrary reaction to his orders and just nodded. She then turned to Harm and said, "Commander Rabb…you will be detailed as Fleet JAG for this…" handing Harm a sheaf of orders as well. Harm followed Animal's lead and gave VADM McMahon no sign that he was disgruntled at the prospect of sea duty, especially with Catherine's impending due date sometime within the next three to four months.

"Such is Navy life, ma'am." He responded bravely.

"Very well…" VADM McMahon said, "You two will be reporting back to the CIA and to ONI as to what you find. This is a fact-finding mission. Do not discuss anything but the fact that you will be on deployment with your respective spouses."

With a scrape of chairs moving back, Animal and Harm stood at the position of attention and barked in unison, "Yes, ma'am!"

VADM McMahon barely acknowledged the military etiquette with a perfunctory nod and exited the room. As the door closed behind her, Animal and Harm exchanged knowing glances. Kardos turned to them and said, "Admiral Nakamura, Commander Rabb; what we're looking for is recon images of potential terrorist training facilities. We'll negotiate over-flights of Pakistani airspace with the Pakistani government; we also need, if such sites are found, the layout of the buildings, the number of vehicles, weapons caches, etcetera in the location. All of this is necessary information."

"…and we have to hang our asses out over the frying pan to do it." Animal asked.

Kardos looked grim, "Unfortunately." He said, his demeanor resigned to the fact that there generally would be absolutely shit. "There will be operations that require extraction from the LZ. Will your forces be able to do so?"

"It'll be risky, but we'd be able to do it." Animal replied non-committal. "But we need prep notice so that we can do it safely."

Kardos nodded, "It will depend on the situation. Sometimes emergency extraction doesn't give us much lead-time."

"Understood." Animal replied looking over at Kardos with a _just do your best_ expression. "I just want to bring my men and women back home from deployment. This will be the first time that a COMNAVAIRLANT has been underway since WWII and the JCS is going to have a shit-fit if something goes wrong. I want every bit of intel that you have on what we're up against."

"Some of that information is black." Kardos said as equally non-committal as Animal had before.

"I don't care whose arm you have to twist, Pete, but give me the four-one-one so that I can do what it takes to bring these sons of bitches to their knees. I'll bomb them with bacon grease filled drop-tanks from the goddamned mess-hall, if I have to, to send those assholes to Paradise and their waiting seventy-two virgins." Animal growled ominously.

Harm tapped Animal on the shoulder. "Animal?"

"Yeah…what?!" Animal snapped.

"Well… Muslims can't eat pork."

"Yeah…so?"

"Well…if you drop bacon-grease filled drop-tanks on them, they will end up going to hell because they would be unpure." Harm stated.

Animal gave him an incredulous look. "…and that's a bad thing because? Do you really think I care where the hell they go once they get their asses handed to them?"

Kardos was trying hard not to laugh. "I take it that you're not charitable with regards to their particular religious beliefs?" he asked.

"Not particularly, especially when those bastards are trying to blow myself and others up." Animal retorted. Harm shook his head. He could see where Animal was coming from but hearing it voiced was another story. "This isn't your normal war, Commander." Animal continued, "it's going to be an _evade and sucker_ punch war; a war of attrition and subterfuge. We need to track the bastards down into their hidey-holes and engage them one on one. Something tells me we're going to go through SEAL teams like a Hollywood actress goes through costume changes."

Kardos agreed, "Actually, sir, you will be inserting a SEAL team into Hoshab." The CIA agent said unfurling a rolled up map. There is a cluster of three hamlets that are surrounded by a riverbed. The LZ will be twenty- five miles south east of the hamlet in the desert. So I need you to prep a mission. What did the vice admiral say about the deployment?"

Animal furrowed his brows as he looked again at the sheaf of orders and then at Harm's. "Well it says here that we are to deploy forward of Sand Viper Station in the Gulf of Oman. I just direct my squadrons as COMNAVAIRLANT. Anything regarding big boats is above my pay grade." Just as he said that, his phone rang. Holding up a hand, he answered the phone. "COMNAVAIRLANT, Rear Admiral Nakamura!"

On the other end of the line a cheerful voice said, "Animal, it's Mitch; when you're done talking to the secret squirrels, I need you to come up to the JAG office and we can kill two birds with one stone. I've got Wrex up here with me." Animal's eyes widened and he shrugged his shoulders at Harm's inquisitive look.

"I'll do that, sir, if you can clear the pad at the Pentagon for me, I'll let the helo aviator know that we're detouring to Ground Zero." Animal informed the caller who sounded cheerful when he responded.

Admiral Mitch Garner, the Chief of Naval Operations responded, "Sure thing, Animal…I'll get the pad clear for you."

_**Animal and Maegyn's Home 511 Breckinridge Avenue, Norfolk, VA 1045hrs**_

"Irish…" Admiral Mitch Garner's voice was warm through the telephone.

"Hello, sir. How may I help you."

"Well…Irish, your husband is heading into the Pentagon this afternoon around 1300hrs. If I send a helo for you in about an hour, can you be at NAS Chamber's Field along with your young son?" ADM Garner sounded like he was up to something. Maegyn could hear it in his voice.

"Sure." Maegyn replied. "I can be at Chambers Field within about an hour and a half, as soon as I get Mikey up from his nap."

"Great, it'll be wonderful to see him again…as well as you and your husband."

"Mitch, you know that you're always able to see your god-son." Maegyn insisted.

"I do also have to talk to you privately before your husband arrives regarding a matter of national security. As a reserve senior officer, you still have top level security clearance, but I have to discuss this in person with you. The phone-lines not being secure and all that."

"Understood, sir." Maegyn switched innately back to subservient officer mode. "Will do, sir. I'll be heading to Chambers Field in zero zero thirty."

"Thanks, Irish. Your helo will be waiting." When Mitch hung up, Irish looked over at the door to the baby's room. "Well…" said quietly half to herself, half to the snoring baby in the crib. "Looks like we're going for a ride."

_**Naval Air Station Norfolk, Norfolk VA, 1125 hrs**_

Maegyn waited patiently for the helo to finish loading the other officers onto the flight. They were travelling in an MH-60S Seahawk (unofficially called the Knighthawk). Maegyn had donned her USN uniform whites; the four gold stripes and line star on her shoulderboards contrasting with the white of her service uniform wearing her USN female cover. Mikey looked absolutely fascinated with his mother looking up at her in her service uniform with wide eyes. He was in a stroller, which to her embarrassment, two other officers of junior rank helped to fold up while she held Mikey so that they could load up the stroller in the net to the rear of the passenger cabin. Soon, the rotor blades started spinning and the vibration of the fuselage was felt through the very bench that she was sitting on and she held onto Mikey tightly as the Seahawk took off.

It was an hour before the familiar shape of the Pentagon building was visible in her field view.

"Ma'am, we'll be landing at the North Helipad." The helo aviator turned to her and said.

"Thank you, Commander." Maegyn replied briefly as she took in the view of the Potomac River and the Pentagon Lagoon Yacht basin to one side of the helo as the helo traversed the No-Fly Zone's air corridor which kept those guards stationed on the roof of the Pentagon from launching one of their shoulder-launched Stingers at them. After September 11th, the guards, armed with FIM-92J Stingers, had been placed on the roof to monitor all approaches by aircraft towards the No Fly Zone established around the Pentagon Building and to shoot them down if necessary. After the Pentagon was hit by that B757-223, American Flight 77, the air-defense wall around the Pentagon was tightened up.

Maegyn remembered that day all too well. She had been on maternity leave; pregnant with Mikey and thus was not called up to fly CAP with the F-14s of VF-101. The scar of the Boeing 757 hit wasn't evident with the completion of the Phoenix Project in August 15th of 2002, bettered by almost a month of their originally scheduled completion date of September 11th 2002; however the newness of the white granite that adorned the face of the building was a scar in itself; a reminder of the innocence and belief in the superiority of the United States that died that fateful September morning in 2001.

By the time that the helo had alighted on the helipad, the aviators shut the rotors down so that the other officers could help Maegyn get Mikey's stroller out of the helo. After their egress from the helo, they headed up the sidewalk towards the building while the helo started up their rotors, returning to Chambers Field.

When they had reached the area of the building that was the United States Navy's temporary working area for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Maegyn sighted the CNO. Cordially snapping to attention, she said, "Captain Maegyn O'Bannon…reporting as ordered, sir."

"Captain, welcome. Come on in…" Mitch replied as he gestured to Maegyn to follow. "Here let me take the stroller." Others gazed at the incongruous sight of the CNO pushing a stroller of a young two year old. The CNO was a single man having never really found the right woman to bond with and thus his friend, his wife's wife and child were like having a surrogate family. To Mikey, he was Uncle Mitch who sent him all sorts of wonderful things from his travels abroad.

When they reached the CNO's office, Mitch ushered her in and sat her and Mikey down in the stroller, then moved around to his side of the desk and sat down. Looking gravely at her, he said. "We've been having problems in the Middle East again." Mitch said. "I'm afraid that I'm going to have to take your husband away from you again for a while."

Maegyn's heart leapt into her throat. "…but he's a shore-based admiral." She protested.

"I know, Maegyn, but the thing is that we need to conduct operations against this new threat that's cropping up…" Mitch replied, "Terrorism used to be this thing in the shadows. They'd bomb a restaurant or some other building. This is the first time since Beirut in 1983 that they have conducted bombings on this scale and against such hardened targets. Yes, the World Trade Center could be considered a soft target, but the Pentagon was a military installation. We need Tosh out there on the front lines…conducting operations against the terrorists, sending recce aircraft against terrorist installations to find out what their weakness is, sending SEAL teams in to harass and disorient the terrorists so that they don't know what's going on. And your husband is good at that."

"I know…Mitch, I flew with him, remember?"

"Yeah…we all flew together at one time." The CNO and former CO of the VF-41 Black Aces said.

Maegyn drew in a shuddering breath. "Mitch, I know why you need to do this to Tosh, but…the spouse in me protests it and I don't like it."

"I understand that, Maegyn." He said, sighing heavily. "I promise I'll do everything that I can to keep him and his people safe."

Maegyn looked at him grimly, "Don't make a promise that you can't keep, Mitch."

_**The Pentagon, Washington, DC, 1435hrs**_

"…and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God." Animal lowered his right hand, palm out to shake the Chief of Naval Operations' hand.

"Congratulations, Vice-Admiral Nakamura." Vice-Admiral Douglas Klassen, the COMSECONDFLT congratulated Animal with a pat on the back once Maegyn had replaced Animal's RADM collar pins with three-star collar insignia.

"Now…the change of command ceremony we'll do formally tomorrow so that Animal can start planning his deployment." Grinned ADM Mitch Garner. The hype and protocol of the change of command ceremony was in keeping with the formality of the promotion ceremony but on an even bigger scale with the whole command presiding; at least the section of the command that wasn't underway. "But we have yet another promotion – of course this is a deep-select promotion and a worthy one at that…" he grinned looking at Animal… "Not that yours wasn't."

Harm looked shell-shocked as he looked over at RADM AJ Chegwidden who looked just about as shocked as he did. And even more shocked when Catherine and a tall familiar blonde stood beside the RADM. He was shocked back to his senses when the CNO barked out.

"Commander Harmon Rabb! Front and Center!"

Everything was a blur until the commissioning oath was read out and he repeated it by rote.

"I, Harmon Rabb, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."

CNO Garner extended his hand…and shook Harm's. "Congratulations, Captain Rabb!"


End file.
